Ember Duke | layout editor

You wake up and check your phone. The battery is charged now, but you know it’ll be half-dead by the time you get to work. On the commute in, your phone won’t connect to the car’s Bluetooth without a protest. At the office, your computer won’t boot up in a timely manner, so you pull out your laptop. The laptop has no storage, making its processing system run at a snail’s pace. Finally, you get something working. The Wi-Fi needs a reboot. You think back to the promises of advertising: technology so good it integrates seamlessly, long battery and shelf life and dynamic, user-friendly interfaces.

A world without technology’s permeating touch isn’t conceivable anymore. Every aspect of modern life is dependent on a machine or software, and we are so normalized to it that we have essentially forgotten how to function without it.

The time to fix a tech issue or wait for your device to work effectively and timely is, at this point, a built-in expense. The purpose of technology is advancement, and of course, most of the modern feats in science, medicine, economics, infrastructure and most other things would be impossible without it. So, why is it that tech’s role in the average person’s life is such a hassle?

Lack of user input at the design phase and lagging, insufficient performance are two of the main issues, according to a 2023 study at the University of Copenhagen.

The study concludes that 11-to-20% of user time is spent troubleshooting tech issues or trying to figure out how a system works. Most of this time is spent trying to perform everyday tasks.

“Everyone knows that it is difficult to create IT systems that match people’s needs, but the figure should be much lower, and one thing that it shows is that ordinary people aren’t involved enough when the systems are developed,” said Kasper Hornbæk, one of the researchers for the study, in an article on ScienceDaily.

The idea of constant innovation and streamlining is as ineffective as it is boring. There is truly no need for a new model of the iPhone every year when the ones in our pockets are barely hanging on by a thread because of update bugs or purposefully short-lived batteries. If Apple were to focus the amount of energy on creating sturdy software as it does on adding another camera, there might not be a need for a new model every year — they might even be able to sway more Android users to cross the SIM card river to the other side.

Most iOS updates intend to fix bugs in the previous version, but if they took more time to craft the original into something truly better, there wouldn’t be as much need to constantly update. Many of the updates they do employ don’t improve the interface, or when they add a new feature it is half-baked at release, thus continuing the need for another update to fix it. In their most recent iOS update, they introduced the ability to record and transcribe phone calls. Several people on Apple’s community support website have reported issues with transferring the audio file to other transcription services, failure to transcribe accurately and fully, as well as processing issues for longer phone calls.

It’s not just Apple, Android phones are no better with their infamously poor cameras and inability to translate information easily to other products — they are too focused on making trendy foldable flip phones.

The fixation on constant improvement risks leaving people behind who may need more time to adapt and causing unnecessary, time-consuming disruptions to both workflow and leisure time.

Now that artificial intelligence is king, the impulse for ‘more’ grows stronger each day and is increasingly unavoidable. Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot and Apple Intelligence are now inherent parts of their respective operating systems.

Technology and the digital world, while beneficial, can also lead to a toll on the user’s well-being and energy levels, according to a 2023 survey by the Deloitte Center for Technology, Media and Telecommunications.

“Forty-one percent of consumers revealed that they dislike managing their devices (for example, updating software, handling security, or fixing problems). Twenty-eight percent said they’re overwhelmed by the devices and subscriptions they need to manage,” an article detailing the survey said.

We’re stuck in the tech cycle because we hardly know anything else these days. The conception of the internet as a handheld thing obliterated the line in the sand between technology and everyday routine. The digital world used to be a place you had to seek out. Now, it’s impossible to keep up without being plugged in, but the current state of technology and innovation is also a roadblock to its own intention of making life simpler.

Modern technology is crucial to a modern world, but it’s also easy to get carried away and focused on what’s next. If companies were to focus on more quality over quantity in the first place, user issues may be less frequent.