I am curious if anyone knows if someone has ever written a book examining why so much of what it supposed to make our lives easier actually makes them harder? Things like telephone trees. They're supposed to provide us with specific access, but they are universally despised and often seem pointless as you end up with someone who doesn't seem specific to your problem. Seems like it would be a fascinating and pertinent subject but don't know if anyone has attempted it.
by The1Ylrebmik
4 Comments
Enshitification by Cory Doctorov has some of this but it’s mostly just about the internet.
Tools for Conviviality or Toward a History of Needs by Ivan Illich
Fiction:
* Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman? Sci fi about the environment, and unintended pitfalls of technology.
* We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker? Near future sci fi about a family during a time of technological change. There’s one new technology sweeping society: a brain enhancing implant that’s supposed to make everyone’s lives easier.
* Honorable mention: Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield is a horror novel that makes phone trees seem like a form of horror, but it isn’t about examining the idea of things that make our lives easier actually making them harder
Yes! “More Work for Mother” by Ruth Cowan is a brilliant book written in the 1980s. It centers on the issue of traditional “housework” that middle-class women have performed and examined why, despite technological progress, the housework didn’t really get easier.
The answer is complex but some factors include evolving standards. More money meant more clothes meant more laundry. Plus people expected to wear freshly laundered clothes at all times. And people used to send laundry out to be done at large laundries, but home machines were invented and advertising convinced people that home laundry was more sanitary, so it was more work for the housewife….
Anyway a great read.