People are lazier than they’ve ever been, and it’s an issue that’s becoming more depressing with each passing day. I’m not sitting in judgement when I say this, because I’m just as susceptible to an episode of lazyitis as the next man. In fact, only yesterday I took a lift up two flights of stairs to the office where I spend most of the day sitting on my arse, because I just couldn’t be bothered to walk. However, I like to think that my bouts of laziness aren’t too prolific. I exercise my dog every day, I play football every week and I’ve just started jogging to try to shift some pounds before the inevitable Christmas onslaught of alcohol and fine fodder. I have two small children, too, and I’d wager that they burn more calories than any fitness regime could ever shift. I’m one of those people who actually like doing things for themselves.
I know when I’m being lazy, and I don’t feel very good about myself when it happens. Dropping litter is a prime example of what I’m talking about. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve dropped litter, and it’s only ever been something like a receipt or a sweet wrapper (when I was much younger and far more stupid, of course). And looking back on when it did happen, I felt awful. I knew what I’d done was wrong, and I knew that it was only sheer laziness that had stopped me picking it up.
So, when I discovered that boffins have created a dustbin designed to provide people with an incentive to dispose of their litter in the correct manner, I was intrigued (see www.thefuntheory.com for more info). What’s so special about this magic bin being trialled? Whenever you drop a piece of litter into it, it makes a sound akin to something being thrown into a deep well (a lengthy whistling noise, followed by a hefty thud). That’s right – to stop people littering we’ve reduced them to characters from an episode of sodding Looney Tunes!
Having done a bit more digging around, I also found that we’ve become so used to local councils picking up our litter for us that it now costs the British taxpayer £858 million each year to keep our streets clean (that’s £100 million increase on last year). Apparently people no longer know that dropping litter is something they shouldn’t do, and being shaped in standard bin dimensions, having the word ‘Litter’ on the front, and being liberally dashed around our high streets, parks, and green spaces isn’t enough to get people to put their rubbish in a trash can. It’s just too much effort.
This laziness – or the perception that people just can’t be bothered – also seems to be affecting the actions of those people and organisations responsible for our virtual neighbourhoods (and, you’ll be glad to know, this is where I get to the point). The other day, I visited Google to find a ‘new and improved’ version of my favourite search engine: Google Instant! Google Instant is the perfect search tool for the lazy generation, because you don’t even have to finish typing your search query before it starts throwing suggestions at you; it’s like a virtual version of charades! I’ve never had a problem with typing what I’m looking for and clicking the ‘search’ button, but Google clearly thinks that it’s too much effort for me. The sad thing is, I think most people will probably love this lazier version of Google, which will then lead to it becoming the default way we use the world’s biggest search engine – and it will then become yet another task that’s taken out of our control.
Reading this, you probably have me tagged as a technological luddite, but as we continue to drift through life with doors opening for us, escalators carrying us where we need to go, dustbins trying to humour us into using them and web developers taking simple tasks out of our control, I have to wonder what the effects will be.
I, like many people who are drawn to the internet, am a complete control freak. I don’t want search results offered up before I’ve had a chance to finish what I’m writing, just as I don’t want dustbins that make where I live sound like an episode of The Goon Show, simply to accommodate lazy idiots who I’d much rather see facing large fines, or even a bit of community service. I’m sure I’m in the minority with my concerns, but I can’t help thinking that – in the interest of providing what we think is a positive user experience for people – we’re actually removing simple and important tasks from our day-to-day lives, which will ultimately have a negative effect on each and every one of us. Now, where’s that remote control?