A Day on the Pale Blue Dot - 11

Wednesday, 10th May 2023

Convenience and Laziness!

Disclaimer: Gibberish rant ahead.

It may feel that our world is moving towards a direction aimed to make us lazy. Many things that required manual effort years back, now can be done easily with help of machines and technology - some of them not even requiring you to step outside your room even.

Today, being a holiday - thanks to the State elections, we thought we'd go watch a movie. The screening was at 9:30 PM. So, at noon, my wife and I walk to the nearby mall and proceed to buy 3 tickets (1 for my brother). It cost ₹ 990/-, inclusive of all charges. I simply checked how much it would cost us if we chose to book via a mobile app. It showed ₹ 1132/-. A difference of close to ₹ 150/- for the same seat and same experience.

Banking is another good example. Remember those days where you had to physically go to a bank with a cheque leaf to get money? When was the last time you did that? That "act" got shifted to ATMs. Probably even a decade ago, we used to go to the ATMs quite often. And today? That frequency too reduced as banking went more and more digital. We do pay a small fee for that convenience.

Driving! More people are shifting to automatics; and one reason for many people is the laziness to drive a manual or even learn how to drive a manual. In many western countries, most new drivers have no clue how to drive a manual. And automatics do cost more than manuals. We are moving towards driverless vehicles now.

One may argue that it is more about convenience than about laziness. But it is this very convenience that drives laziness.

People complain that food delivery apps charge a bomb for the same food that one could eat or take-away directly from a restaurant. Hey people, that is the charge for your convenience/laziness.

Apart from the monetary angle, we are deprived of real social interaction and some physical effort. When we actually go out there, you meet people and have real interactions. We shifted that to social media with their infinite scrolls.

When we go out there, we do take some physical effort to do things. We shifted that to gyms (just to use a treadmill?). More payment!

What the future holds when the world offers more and more convenience, we have to wait and watch.

"Hey Kunjappa, feed me my dinner; I'm feeling too lazy to eat!"