A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch
Way back in November of 2010, I invented a new term. I can’t believe that it hasn’t caught on. Over‑technologied is a term that I made up to describe a situation where technology is used either unnecessarily, stupidly, inadequately or in some other silly manner. I think that people who have the latest, greatest, newest technology and then don’t know how to use it are extremely over‑technologied. I made up the word, so I guess I can make up the definition.
At the recent Google I/O Show, they announced their updated Google Assistant (with six new voices). By now everyone has probably heard the call to the hairdresser and the restaurant making an appointment. Although I don’t know how much was real and how much was made to sound nice for playback, I think this is another case of being over‑technologied. Making an appointment is one thing. Can you imagine what it will be like during election season when the politicians call to beg for money? How about the many other spam call companies? Personally, I plan to handle those problems by just not answering any calls from unknown telephone numbers.
How many people do you know with so many flash drives, storage cards, disk drives, etc. that cannot find a file because they can’t remember where they stored it? Do you think they might be over‑technologied? I’ve got a hint for them. Cloud storage is cheap.
Every year manufacturers release their new cell phone with higher prices. They justify having to gouge us by increasing the over‑technology that is installed. Do we really need two cameras? Is massive storage required when almost all data is stored in the cloud? How many people really need sensors to check blood pressure, atmospheric pressure, light intensity, relative humidity, etc.? How many people do you know that actually use a fingerprint sensor to unlock their phone? My phone has the ability to fast charge with a special power adapter. I’ve used it exactly two times. The first was when I bought the phone and checked to see if it worked. One other time, I forgot to charge the phone and used quick charge for about ten minutes. Like almost everyone else, my phone is over‑technologied.
Our homes are definitely becoming over‑technologied. Do we need refrigerators that keep track of how much milk is left in the jug? How about those toilets that can warm the seat, automatically lower the lid, etc.? I haven’t done a search, but I would be willing to bet that you can find one that automatically washes and blow dries when you finish your business. My DVR is so over‑technologied that when the time changes, it doesn’t.
I’m probably going to get a lot of disagreement when I say that almost every Operating System has become over‑technologied. Windows has been in such a hurry to add features that almost every time there is an update, there will be complaints about systems becoming inoperable. If you survey a hundred different Android users, you will be lucky to find ten of them with the same OS. Linux is about the same except that you would have a hard time finding a hundred users. Even Apple suffers the same problems as the others. The technology has advanced so much that they are not able to keep up with the security. Additionally, you would be hard pressed to find anyone that uses all of the newest features in any OS.
Much of the over‑technology I wrote about eight years ago is still valid today. Maybe I’ll have to address the subject again in 2026.
Thanks for reading.