Why everything is becoming confusing

One day when I was about 17 I noticed my all-powerful Dad not really understanding his iPhone home screen. I realised then clearly that as I get older, technology will also leave me behind.

So far it hasn’t, I think. But I do think something else going on – technology is purposefully choosing to be less user friendly.

Not just our software, I find some movies and even ads are choosing to be less accessible. Take last years’ John Lewis Christmas ad. Most comments under it on YouTube complain that they just didn’t understand the story.

The pace at which I can’t keep up doesn’t just feel too fast – but it feels like its accelerating with each month.

Software like MS Paint and Mac Paint were designed to be clear as day. Easy to use for people who’d never even seen a mouse or keyboard.

In the 90s the screens around us offered 4 or 5 options for what to watch. 2 of which were the BBC. Now those screens have multiplied, the layers of abstraction within them have deepened. Within your phone and there’s 5 on-demand libraries of daily changing content, 5 text messaging apps and 5 social media universes. Each one yelling that you’re not giving it enough attention.

The feeling I had towards my phone 10 years ago was that its a magic device that lets me take shortcuts in almost anything I want to do with my life. Now my phone feels like a collage of “platforms” thirsty for my attention. Between them, messages from real humans, I feel guilty for not looking at.

Software is becoming more clumsy – ways of logging in and authenticating are stopping us from living the life technology promised.

My theory is that the people with the power to create and build the world around us aren’t really doing it for the masses, like they used to.

They’re incentivised to make choices that impress the people they admire.

People self-sort into both digital and physical universes where the people around them are so similar to them that they’ve lost track of who an ordinary person is. People play to their people and they produce work to impress their peers.