Wasn’t the internet supposed to simplify things?

When the World Wide Web emerged more than 20 years ago, those who understood its potential claimed it would make life easier. Less mail and phone calls because everything could be paid and answered on line. Is that what happened? Quite the opposite.

Yes, the internet is a source of endless information, but it is better at COLLECTING data. You can’t follow through with anything that looks interesting until you give them an email, an address or a phone number. How many spam-mails do you delete on a daily basis, how much junk mail piles up on your kitchen table and how many calls do you get from India and wherever peddling whatever?

All this data collected online has become a product in itself because email lists, home and business mailing addresses and phone numbers are obviously being sold to direct mail houses and telemarketers that complicate our lives more than ever. And, of course, we make it worse by looking at every email before deleting, every piece of junk mail before trashing and answer every call if for no other reason than to tell them to never call us again.

Perhaps the biggest irritant is how cumbersome the internet has become between what must be shrinking bandwidth (where is Google Fiber and AT&T GigaPower, anyway) and incessant ads that are known in the industry as pre-rolls. ESPN is absolutely the worst. I am trying to read the ongoing story of Ryan Lochte and his co-Olympic swimmers punking the Brazilian authorities, but before every video clip comes a 15- or 30-second commercial. I had to sit through the same stupid Fantasy Football ad sponsored by Campbell’s chunky soup before getting to the next part of the story.

Tell me, who has that much time and patience? Not me.

We’re now stuck to our devices, unable to toss our cell phones into the fountain or stomp our tablets to death. We seem to not be able to live without them, although they make life so much harder. Remember coming back from lunch and picking up three pink slips? Those were the days, my friend. Too bad they had to end.

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