I use tech to complicate my life and make it better. Not simpler. I’ve never felt that it simplifies my life. Tech gives me information, organizes me and entertains me.
If I used just a few tech tools, it could simplify my life. An answering machine simplified it. And a fax machine. But those are very 1/2 duplex technologies, more like Web -3.0
Other basic tools like a calendar and address book help to organize my life, and make it so I don’t need to remember things which makes my life a little easier.
Much of what unsimplifies life are the more interactive technologies, the ones that require a response, especially the ones that require a response quickly. E-mail is my biggest interactive technology, I’ve tried so many of the others and while I enjoy them they just take up so much time… Twitter, IM, and other chat-type services. I really like Seesmic, but it’s hard to get a feel for what’s going on with just a glance, you’ve got to watch the video’s to see what they’re about; there just isn’t enough of a description to know what the conversation is about (or what it’s become after multiple responses).
And then there are all the interactive ones that you’re just exploring, there is so much out there and it’s so time consuming it’s un-simplifying my life in that it’s taking away time from the rest of it.
With it I can do more than without it. Do I need to be doing more? Probably not, but some of what I’m able to explore and experience makes it worth it to me.
