...but not strong
This idea literally jumped out at me during my first trip to the USA in 1991. In those years, car manufacturers had come up with the “brilliant” idea that would ensure no one would ever forget to put on their seat belt again.
The system worked as follows: the driver's seat belt was no longer anchored in the pillar between the doors but just above it on the edge of the roof, in a track that ran above the door to the windscreen. You no longer needed to fasten your seat belt. You would sit down and, when you closed the door, the seat belt would position itself. Similarly, you would stop the engine, open the door and the seat belt would return to the windscreen. You no longer had to think about it, no more worrying about it, you were automatically “belted”.
Well, that really got to me. Just because they wanted to make your life easier, to protect you at all times, they took away your ability to make a choice, even a bad one. They took away your ability to think about fastening your seatbelt. So you no longer made the effort, the conscious decision to fasten your seatbelt. From that day on, I started to look at automatic doors and remote controls in a totally different light.
Zap-zap!
Ah yes, the remote ! Once upon a time, if you wanted to change the channel on your TV, you had to get up, walk over to the set and turn this or that knob. Same for the volume, switching the set on and off, not to mention the antenna alignment.
Of course, there were far fewer channels and programs of all kinds back then. Nevertheless, you still had to make an effort to get what you wanted from the device. Nowadays, you can stay on the sofa without really knowing what you want to watch, you can zap between DTTV, Netflix, Replays, YouTube and whatever TV channel you have subscribed to. You can adjust the volume, pause, record, etc. All of this without moving your ass !
If you had to get up and go to the TV every single time before sitting back down, realizing “Shit, I forgot to turn up the volume”, getting up again, etc., do you really think you wouldn't turn off the TV earlier, thus saving yourself hours of aimless screen time?
When Pavlov turns the light back on
Another example: I attended a meeting in a room (more like a large office) equipped with a lighting system that would turn off after 5 minutes if it did not detect any movement in the room. The idea is quite understandable: save money and make sure that the light turns off even if no one thinks to switch it off. However, the few movements that we make during this meeting where everyone was sitting around a table were not enough to make the automatic system understand that people were present.
So, after 5 minutes, the light goes out and our host starts to raise his arms and wave them above his head while talking so that the light comes back on. He explains the trick to us, everyone laughs, the meeting resumes. But 5 minutes later, the light goes out again and this time, several of us raise our arms and wave them to turn it back on. You'll tell me it's a good workout, I call it mind conditioning.
Open door... Closed door...
Yet another one in the USA, once again about cars. When the first self-locking cars arrived, with which you just need to have the keys in your pocket and move away for the doors to lock or get closer for them to open. We were covering a music fair and, as usual, we had rented a big American SUV so that five of us could all fit inside, luggage included. We shove it all in at the airport and head for the hotel. But on the way, the boss, a vinyl fan, wants to stop and buy some records at a shop he knows. We get out of the car, I press the central locking and, as a reflex, I try to open a door just to make sure it's locked. Damn! The door opens...
“You didn't press the right button.”
We try again, and again! By now, we're starting to think we've been given a faulty car. Long story short, it goes on for a good ten minutes until the salesman comes out to ask us if we have a problem. We tell him what's going on, and he has the idea that it might be one of those new cars with said device. So I move about twenty meters away from the car, one of us stays by the door, tries to open it and, phew! It's locked.
If you dig a little deeper, what happens in the name of comfort? You are forced to trust a combination of electronics and mechanics. If you are alone, you have no way of checking that your vehicle is actually locked. Have faith in technology and... sleep, I demand it! My problem is certainly not with trusting technology, since, like most of us, I rely on various vehicles to get around and on several devices to eat, wash and communicate, but I more or less chose to do so. Here, you are forced to.
All these devices rely on our lazyness, our inconsistency, our forgetfulness, or our stupidity. Worse, they reinforce them. Supposed to remedy human weaknesses, but calibrated to work even with the lowest type of forehead, they drag us down, towards physical and intellectual laziness, towards mediocrity. Worse, they leave us no choice, except not to use them. Even the remote control, whose role is paradoxically to put all the choices at our fingertips, makes us more dependent. Have you ever tried to adjust the brightness of a modern TV screen without the remote control?
Oh, but I'm not watching TV.
That's what I hear most often when I discuss this topic. Let's say that's true, and good for you, but I'm sure you have a computer, tablet or smartphone connected to the internet, right? Same thing! No... It's even worse! Because now you can see and do anything, anytime and anywhere. In a sense it's great, you can virtually visit a hypermarket, nay a worldwide market, as well as an organic cheese shop, McDonald's or the world's finest museums. Book holidays, cars, medical appointments, pay your bills and your taxes sitting on your toilet or lying in bed.
We are satisfied. We have this feeling of ease, or even of omnipotence for some, when in fact it creates a new addiction. Each new technology, each device that we let into our lives creates a new need. And I do mean “creates”, because this need often did not exist at all to begin with. But now that it does exist, we may feel a craving. You have already experienced this lack when your water heater no longer works and you have to take your morning shower, when your car won't start to take you where you need to go, when your heating, oven or fridge breaks down. Well now, on top of that, you have your computer, your smartphone, the internet, and you have to admit that being cut off from your bank, deprived of your passwords, your emails, your medical follow-up, the various administrations you more or less depend on, etc., is much worse than taking a cold shower, isn't it?
Questions:
- How many times have you yelled at Alexa or Siri so that it would finally agree to turn down the volume when all you needed was stretch out your arm to do it yourself ?
- How many videos of morons who have installed connected light bulbs all over their house, even where they didn't need them? Check them out on YT.
- how many millions of people freaked out about their accounts during the global FB, Insta, Whatsapp outage?
Try explaining that to someone living in the 70s, the 19th century or the Middle Ages...
So unless you want to end up a vegetable, watching the big screen TV on the wall, sitting on the sofa/toilet/fridge, constantly gobbling up whatever comes along, with your remote control within reach, get rid of anything you don't need, anything that is a toxic or pleasurable addiction, and only use what you really need. And then, go for a walk!
Wesh Bro !
