Something I’ve been noticing lately—tech blogs see every new software development or web innovation as a solution to a problem, even where no problem really existed before. It’s an old trick that women’s magazines have been using successfully for decades.
So, the above quote is from a Mashable story about a new gmail “people widget” which generates a sidebar for your emails with info about the sender, such as when they last emailed you. Which is fine, and probably useful (when it’s not just an information overload).
But here’s the thing—is it really all that difficult to “get your bearing when you receive an email”? Really?
I don’t know if it’s so much inventing solutions to non-existent problems as the desire for quick and easy content for posts (or in the case of magazines, blurbs, articles, etc). A new feature of an email program or a browser doesn’t take long to describe, just as a new fashion line or new mascara doesn’t take long to write about either. For the tech blogs in particular, they have to pump out content non-stop so not every piece can be thoughtful and reflective to say nothing of the fact that their default stance towards tech in general isn’t “do we need this?” but “gee whiz, what a cool new feature!!!”
Hi Anna, you’re very right, and I hadn’t thought about that angle of it. There’s a definite pressure to constantly churn out something (anything), which I suppose is also why every tech blog (and many other niches too) all tend to report the same “news.”
I do think though that this way of framing things as “look, problem solved” is problematic when it comes to tech sites, because it also feeds into the skewed priority we place on tech and its role in our lives (she says typing on her Macbook, with iPhone beside it) and the rush to always have the newest product, and so forth.
And actually when I wrote this I was also thinking about the general trend of obsessing over productivity tools to the point that you spend more time switching between to-do apps and trying to squeeze every drop of productivity (whatever that even means) out of your day, than just getting things done.
Phew, ’nuff said! Cheers.