"New" Is Not Always Synonymous with "Improved"

If I had been in charge of the world for all the time the world has been in existence, we would still be living in the Stone Age. Technology is not my forte, and if I had had to lead the advancement of modern civilization, it never would have happened. Anyone who knows me knows that. I'm good with people, not always with things. I won't say I don't enjoy the many conveniences of life in the twenty-first century, but I would probably have been equally happy sitting under a tree and "philosophizing", Buddha-style. On the other hand, there's a lot to be said for indoor plumbing, control over air temperature, cars, microwaves, and of course computers. How else would I write my blog if not for my trusty laptop and the internet? I suppose I could write on scrolls (and my audience would likely be the same size).

What got me thinking about all of this was the inability of certain forms of technology to "leave it alone". I know my thinking would be seen as backwards by techies but, really, if something works well, why mess with it? It may sound like I'm going to launch into a tirade about something important here, but I'm not. It's my Yahoo mail. It suddenly wants to show me videos every time I empty my spam folder. I'm not sure how that improves the world, or even my little piece of it. I get this message every time I purge the folder: "Your spam folder is empty. Here are some great videos for you to watch!" I'm glad Yahoo is excited about it, but it annoys me to no end! Why would I want to sit and watch videos in my empty spam folder? Sometimes when confronted with annoyances like this one, I think about the meeting in which someone came up with the idea. I think that about commercials too. It isn't just that one person thought it was a good enough idea to propose; it's that enough people thought it was a good idea to implement.

Maybe I'm just cranky. I had two back-to-back scoring shifts and have been on the computer since 6:30 this morning, nearly twelve hours. Maybe empty-spam-folder videos are a great idea and I'm simply not seeing the big picture. I'm going outside to sit under a tree.