Howls of a Technoprat #3
Imagine my surprise when I walked into the baker’s the other day and they asked, ’Would you like to get our app?’ Fortunately I was polite enough not to say ‘No, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.’ But honestly, why would I? I ought to be able to rock up to the bakers, groats in hand, and buy the staff of life.
The sneaky thing is, though, that their loyalty scheme has moved online. A fellow-customer produced her well-stamped loyalty card, only to be told that it was no longer accepted, having been superseded by the app. So the fun of seeing your loyalty card accruing little loaf-shaped stamps and anticipating the pleasure of a free loaf has disappeared at a stroke.
Once I’d started seething about this, I couldn’t stop. I remembered the Great Christmas Present Debacle: filled with anxiety that the present I’d ordered for my granddaughter wouldn’t arrive on time (a fear fuelled by a succession of doom-laden emails I’d received from the sellers), I rushed out to an actual toyshop the day before Christmas Eve to buy something – anything – as a replacement. I snatched up three modelling kits for making comedy animals. They weren’t pink, there wasn’t a unicorn in sight, and the woman behind the counter assured me they had had great feedback about them.
I bore them home in triumph and it wasn’t until I was about to wrap them up that I noticed the QR code and the weasel words ‘Sculpt with the app’, followed by ‘App that makes sculpting easy’. Do we really want toys that drive children onto screens? Surely the whole point of sculpting and modelling is to get lost in the whole tactile experience, and who cares whether what you produce looks anything like the picture on the box? You might end up producing something ten times more imaginative.
The final straw came in the form of an email from the City Lit, where I’d signed up to do a beginners’ flamenco course. Just the thing, I thought, to counteract the January blues. The mail contained the dread words ‘Your course will use Google Classroom for sharing resources. Please log into your Google Classroom at least a few days before your course starts to make sure we can help you with any problems before your first session.’ What could I possibly get from Google Classroom that could possibly help with this course? It will not be able to deliver the sinuous wrists, nifty footwork, and fiery spirit of duende that a ginge of a certain age like myself would really need to excel at flamenco. Fortunately our lovely teacher has plenty of all this to share – and appreciates that many of her flock love nothing better than a photocopied handout!
On a daily basis BBC Sounds exhorts me to get the app, because ‘listening is better in the app’. Why, I wonder, and – credit where it’s due –– consult AI. It turns out that listening in the app offers me the opportunity to do a lot of things I don’t actually want to do. The actual listening experience remains the same…
I promise to not indulge in another techno-whinge until next year.
Yours,
The Analog Throwback
Next year?
You’ve no idea how refreshing it is to hear about fellow sufferers . All loyalty cards will morph into apps ( how I hate that word).
Please continue to whinge …
I sometimes feel I’m the only person on earth who still prints stuff out!