The Dark Side of Technology

Technology and technical advances are not without their downsides and drawbacks.

These can occur for many reasons, including application of technologies or products that are not mature, people displaced or replaced in the job marketplace by technological changes, inappropriate applications of technology – sometimes “technology for technology’s sake,” and many other reasons.

We’re going to look at just few examples of the downside to technology: the unreliability of PCs, the current insecure state of the Internet, the plague of excess connectivity and email overload, and the use of technology for technology’s sake.

The unreliability of PCs and software:

PC stands for Personal Computer, but quite honestly, PCs are often miserable creatures! There is little personal, or at least personable, about them. They should be as reliable and safe as ATM machines, refrigerators, and washing machines. They should require minimal maintenance. They should not have the absurd amount of problems they do today.

I’m a technical guy and even I have problems and get fed up. There often isn’t enough time in the day to fix all the minor glitches and problems I encounter so I just live with them. For example, this new laptop with up to date operating system, software, etc. simply refuses to install AOL Instant Messenger, will not accept Eudora as my default mail program, and won’t let my antivirus software automatically update. And the home PC has problems: the scanner makes it crash about 25% of the time, the writable CD is flakey, and I can list more problems. The last couple of days my even cell phone has needed occasional rebooting. In each case I’ve spent a little fruitless time trying to fix each problem, and I will eventually find fixes or workarounds for the most important problems, but I’m just too busy to spend lots of time. Maybe I should just dedicate the whole weekend to fixing problems? Sorry, but I’m going to play with the kids instead this weekend! I assure you I work more than enough. Besides, PCs should be tools, not obsessions.

PCs need to become appliances – and by that I mean reliable pieces of equipment that rarely if ever need to be updated. They are absolutely not today!! Why?

Software is too complex:

PCs typically have lots of (complex) software installed and the interactions between the software are even more complex. All this complexity is NOT required and leads to increased unreliability.

There is an often quoted statistic that I’m not going to get absolutely right: 95% of all Microsoft Word users only use 5% of its functionality. This may or may not be entirely accurate, but it is clear the vast majority of users only use a small percentage of most software packages functionality. So why is most software so big and complicated??? The more complexity software has, the more bugs, the more security issues, the harder it is to test, the more likely it is to have unexpected interactions with other software. It’s as simple as that.
All other things being equal, simpler software is more reliable as well as more secure. We need more “Simpler Software.”

Software changes far too rapidly:

New and improved versions are “better,” have more functionality, and are in many cases actually “improved and better.” But you can’t make a moving target reliable. How much testing will a software vendor do if they know they’ll be issuing patches soon after release and end users can find the bugs anyway? Not enough! End users and end user organizations let them get away with this – often lending encouragement by refusing to pay extra for robust, reliable, secure software.

Often any “new and improved” benefits are debatable and the new software is usually larger, more complex, and less reliable. There is just more that can go wrong with more complex software.

Software also seems to be written for the latest hardware with not enough emphasis on reasonable performance on older machines. My mother has a refrigerator that’s almost 30 years old. I think it would be reasonable to expect a two or three year old PC to run most new software extremely well!


My car has a microprocessor and software code, but I don’t change the code in my car ever! I shouldn’t be forced to change my OS and key applications frequently!

The Internet is unsafe:

Let’s face it, wonderful as the Internet is, it is not a safe place. Several times a week I get bombarded by people trying to rob me: phishing schemes asking for my credit card number and other personal info, ridiculous letters from Nigeria asking for cooperation in return for a few million dollars and other too good to be true schemes, random packets flung at my PC every few minutes at least – many obvious hacker attacks and probes, and I’ve received several viruses just this morning in my email.

How often do con artists try to interact with me in the physical world? How often does anyone try to break into my office, car or home? How often do vandals try to attack? Clearly these events occur far far less often than similar events on the Internet!

Before the Internet becomes relatively safe (use your own definition) we need some changes: hacking needs to be treated as a serious crime, software needs to be simplified and its rate of change slowed down, Operating System vendors and Internet Service Providers need to assume more responsibility for security, and Internet users need to have responsibly secure computers. For more details, see The Three changes needed to make the Internet safe.
On the Internet, you should be paranoid, just as in real life. Just more paranoid on the Internet as more people ARE out to get you!!! I’m certain the Internet will become safer as it matures, but never 100% safe. Nothing is 100% safe.

Excessive connectivity:

I was recently working at a client site where each employee had a cell phone, pager, email, and instant messaging. If we needed to contact someone to get something done, for example rebooting a server, it was great.
However the people I was trying to work with were constantly getting interrupted and our productivity was running probably about 50%. Even lunch was interrupted more often than not.

There is simply no way that overall productivity was increased with all this excess connectivity! No, of course they didn’t have any metrics, just a warm fuzzy feeling that being able to interrupt anyone at anytime was a great thing! Personally, I leave the cellphone behind sometimes. Although I might take it fishing, I’m equally likely to turn it off when sitting in the office and trying to concentrate. I don’t always read every email as it comes in even when online. If I’m in a meeting, whether in person, online, or over the telephone, I turn off instant messaging, my cell phone, and email.

Email Overload:

How many people feel the absolute need to check and respond to work emails from home, perhaps after dinner or early in the morning before work? I usually do, but in my case it’s a personal decision as it is with many people. But I know many people with fulltime jobs who simply need to in order to do their jobs effectively. Their employers as well as fellow employees expect it of them.

I used to have a regular job way back in the dark ages of the Internet. When I left work, I left work behind. Although I might have thought about some work issues, or perhaps read an interesting technical book after dinner, it was my time.

Work and personal time have blended together, but unfortunately the mix is more work in your personal time than personal time in your work. Companies talk about promoting “life balance” but often it is an illusion.

Inappropriate Applications of Technology:

There is an episode of the old TV show “The Jeffersons” where George Jefferson has just learned about “i.e.” and “e.g.” He had a visitor he wanted to impress and he used “i.e.” or “e.g.” in just about every sentence. Sometime I feel we’re doing the same with new technology – inserting it everywhere whether appropriate or not.

I have two new light dimmer switches in my house that are microprocessor controlled. Why would anyone put a microprocessor in a dimmer switch? I can think of a very few reasons, but they don’t apply here. I hate these switches and will be replacing them soon.

My wife’s new spaceage minivan is more high tech than many spaceships in old science fiction movies. The level of technology, and complexity, is simply amazing. Of course more complexity leads to less reliability as there is simply more that can break. Much of this technology, as described above, is very useful. But some of it is simply ridiculous.
For example the keys have microprocessors in them! A key without the microprocessor can unlock the doors but not start the engine. Allegedly it’s an antitheft feature, although it reeks of “technology for technology’s sake.” Somehow I think it’ll be more of an impediment to the rightful van’s owner if they ever lose their keys than a professional car thief.

Many products have too many bells and whistles. Cellphones top my list. Although maybe I was wrong and a camera is a great thing to have integrated in a phone, or at least many people think so, some of the latest features are just ridiculous. The latest cellphones I’ve seen allow you to watch TV or movies on their tiny screen. Is anyone really going to do this? The screen is just soooo small that watching TV or movies is just a novelty and not practical.

I just heard about perhaps the silliest application of technology ever. It’s a US$60,000 bed that turns into a bomb shelter. I don’t think I could make up anything stranger! To potential users of this bed: just sleep in your bomb shelter

Technology, just like anything else, has both good and bad sides. Most of us, except for a few Luddites, believe the potential good outweighs the potential bad. We need to strive to avoid the bad effects of technology just like we need to strive to avoid the bad effects of everything else. Food is good but too much food or too much unhealthy food is bad. We know that, since food is nothing new, yet many of us still struggle with obesity and other food related issues. I’m fond of beer and wine like most of my friends and have no problem with alcohol, although certainly some people do. And most of us, at least in the US, have had problems with drinking too much at least a few times, probably when alcohol was new and fascinating when we were teenagers. New technology will always be alluring and fascinating and have unexpected dangers, as well as incredible potential upside.