There’s no doubt apps have made our lives easy. We are literally living in a digital world where there is an app for everything you need and do. If you want to watch a movie, there’s an app for it. If you want to order your favorite food, there’s an app for it. If you want to go shopping, there’s an app for it. If you want to edit a photo or create music, there’s an app for it. For almost every human activity today, there is an app for them. Let’s face it, in this modern era, we are now constantly living in apps.
Being the “latest and greatest” thing does really mean it’s all that it's cut out to be. Every app out there aims to be the latest and greatest. To do so, they keep on updating them whenever it is possible. Though updates are important, especially security and service updates, updating them is somehow starting to become tiring. They update to make what’s already user friendly to be more user friendly. The thing is, sometimes, updates tend to defeat the purpose of the app just to be on par with the latest and greatest.
It appears that we are in a race - a race to have the latest and be the greatest. But is having the latest and being the greatest all that matters? It seems that our society is geared towards that and just like any race, it gets tiring.
So what happens when Fatigue Kicks in? On Google Play’s data alone, top apps are updating at least once to four times every month. On average, every individual has around 60 to 90 apps on their devices. This means that an average person updates their apps at least 60 times per month! No wonder app update fatigue is kicking in. People are getting overwhelmed not just by the thousands of apps out there, but by the updates that go along with each of them. That’s why many don’t really bother updating their apps unless they’re required to.
One of the reasons why updating apps gets tiring is that updates keep on coming even though nothing really changes with the overall purpose of the app. No matter how latest or greatest the tech or feature is, an app for food delivery will always be for ordering and delivering food. Sometimes, changes in these apps become annoying rather than exciting. When you’re so used to where each button is placed then all of a sudden, after an update, you can’t seem to find where that particular feature you need is moved to.
Have you ever experienced doing or creating something great, and because you want to improve it to make it “better”, you end up ruining it? Like someone who painted a picture and found it beautiful but because of society's expectations and influences, this person finds the need to make it “more beautiful”, he added unnecessary details to it which ruined the entire painting. This could be the case. With the desire to make apps better, we make them worse.
Ahhhh I look fondly on simpler times and truth be told, there is beauty in simplicity. Complicated things sound fancy but are overwhelming. Most of the apps today started simple but ended up being more confusing than it’s supposed to be. Adding the latest and greatest features might be tempting, but we need to ask ourselves, do we really need that? Is it in line with our purpose and intention?
It’s good to look back to a time where things were simple. It’s good to look back to a time where technology was used to serve as a tool for the betterment of our lives. I fear we are living in the grey area of technology; it has overrun our daily lives to the point where people have lost the ability to look up. I want to encourage you to look up, disconnect, unplug, declutter and stop watching others. Put your device down, keep your head up and look beyond the horizon, true living is immersing yourself into the real world that awaits your genuine connection.
