Resist the App-ification of Everything

Rage against the screens.

Photo by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash

A few months back, I bought a Hatch sound machine. I’ve never owned a sound machine before, so you will excuse my ignorance, but I thought you plugged it in, hit the “on” button, and it would play some sounds (ideally white noise) to help with sleep. This sound machine had good ratings. It looked straight-forward enough.

This sound machine is not straight-forward.

To get the damn thing to even work, I had to download the Hatch app, which requires connecting the machine to my phone’s Bluetooth, and also to my Wifi, which conveniently has one of those 96-part passwords made up of a jumble of letters and upper and lower-case letters printed in 4-point font on the bottom of my router. The sound machine app would like to know my child’s birthday, and perhaps my birthday, and would I like to grant access to a caretaker? I cannot emphasize this point enough: This damn thing would not work unless I downloaded the Hatch app. Once it was all apped-up I could use it just by touching it, but the app was a prerequisite for any sound to sound.

This is a silly and small thing, but in recent years I have had to download an app to order room service at a hotel, adjust the temperature of my thermostat, pay my bill at a restaurant, pay my bill to the electric company, book a yoga class, pay for marking, use a washing machine at a laundromat, dispense a home fragrance in my basement, and use the air fryer in my oven. Toasters, salt shakers, and floss dispenses have apps. Schools and pre-schools and daycares require you to download an app. One of the most highly-rated baby monitors doesn’t even have its own screen; the camera goes straight to an app in your phone, so I guess you’re looking at that all night long. You can buy a “connected” fork.

Enough is enough.