I am a late adopter. Always have been. Especially when it comes to computers.
When I visited Windows 10 for some software access (no windows 7 support), I approached with a reluctance veiled by the mounting annoyances of running Windows 7 in 2024. I didn’t want to change to 10, but I was secretly hoping to have my mind changed.
In fact, why am I still running Windows 7, now 15 years old, instead of 10, now 9 years old?
Am I just being a curmudgeon?
No.
Easy answer, right?
I use 7 at work as there is software that (more or less) requires it, but as newer software refuses to be updated on unsupported versions of windows, more issues are mounting. I’d like to like windows 10 and upgrade, but a few visits in and I started asking myself a different, related question;
What is this, or any computer actually supposed to do?
I recently finished reading Man And The Computer, and I feel I can now answer that question easily:
It’s supposed to make my life easier.
But which life? My life as a husband and father? My life as a Christian? My life as an employee of a corporation? My life as a freelancer? My life as a reader? My life as a learner?
What about helping me to achieve my goals? Does the computer make them easier or harder?
Bill’s Skinner Box
I’m rereading Deep Work by Cal Newport, and view the windows 10 interface with a renewed clarity. While working on the problem with my work computer, having booted into Windows 10 for the software which no longer supports Windows 7, the task bar moves.
The deepest recesses of my lizard brain scream, “Look at that movement! Food?! Danger?!” but it’s just the stock price of some unknown three letter acronym, displayed in my vision for some reason. I resist the urge as a sloth appears near the start button for some other reason. Why a sloth? I saw a sloth once. It was at that exotic farm we went to. I still have the video, they moved faster than I thought. Maybe I should watch it again. Remember the kookaburras they had there? That was cool. Kookaburras are one of the animals named for their call like Pokemon. We should go back the– Wait. I’m… comparing motherboard settings on my CPU and testing with Intel’s diagnostic tool. Where was I? Which setting was I testing again?
I recall the setting, and click the start menu to launch the diagnostic tool, colorful ads for games and icons for software I haven’t install appear there. Autodesk? I didn’t install autodesk on this– Oh, that’s an ad. Sketchbook was good software, but they changed their license and I haven’t– Wait. I’m… I need the Intel diagnostic tool.
These interruptions couldn’t pull the thread of my mind for more than a few milliseconds, but it’s never a simple tug, the train of thought must derail to skip tracks and then derail to skip back. Hopefully. The worst case scenario is that I don’t even consciously register it, but like the cocaine addict flashed an image of the white powder for 33ms, the craving implants without conscious knowledge of why or where it started.Maybe in a few months we’ll be back at that farm looking at the sloths and I’ll think, “This is fun. I’m glad I rewatched that sloth video for no reason whatsoever.”
But that’s beside the point; I want to know what this computer is supposed to be doing for me, so I can compare that standard against what it’s actually doing to me, right now. Because all Windows 10 is doing at this moment is getting in my way.
You wouldn’t talk to a webserver
I mean, technically you wouldn’t. I have done it before with Telnet. It’s just inefficient.
The computer, more specifically the software that it runs, is meant to process data-represented abstractions for us which express datum about which we care.
If I want to know the news, the computer can talk at distance and high speed with a news server and retrieve the news someone else has curated, and display it as that someone else has intended. The fact that my computer is blindly processing code some stranger rather than simply presenting me with a stream of text aside, the computer is translating my request into binary, sending it off, receiving binary in reply, and translating it back into a format that I am expecting. Whether a column of text, a PDF of a newspaper, or a moving picture with audio.
The important point, is that I requested it do (most) these things.
When I log in to Windows 7, I do not have stock tickers triggering my fight or flight, or start menu candy crushes enticing me to take a break, or sloths trying to make me go back to that farm or something, I truly don’t know why the sloth was there. I just have my desktop icons with the software and reference files I need to do my job.
Are you doing something WITH me? FOR me? Or TO me?
The context is the difference. The computer helping you find a recipe before dinner is helpful, but not so much while you have a rapidly approaching deadline. Technology is a multiplier. It can exaggerate good things or bad. It has the potential to become a helper, but I believe the greater likelihood is that it becomes a tireless demon tugging at the worst of us. A Screwtape, amplifying the worst, and drowning out the good.
The same computer enticing you to browse pornography is the same one helping you do your taxes. This is confusing to our mental contexts and habits.
The computer cannot act on its own, you’re doing it to yourself!
I argue first that this is somewhat true, and second, that this is perfectly irrelevant.
First, you do not command the entirety of your computer or phone. There are probably dozens of parties who have agency over your phone, likewise but less so over your Personal Computer.
An environment can be conducive to focus, or not. A desk cluttered with distractions is not a good place to work without distraction. One cannot “Just ignore it” when we do not have full control over our subconscious. Clutter stresses and distracts us, and removing it builds an environment which supports focus and performance.
The computer is an abstraction of the desk. It literally has a desk-top, and folders into which files are placed. Unfortunately, we have accepted this metaphor and all its baggage, though we are technically unbound by familiarity and physics. You still cannot put too many files on your desktop. You can buy a bigger desk, but you may simply fill it with more clutter. The environment of the computer is fighting against you, encouraging clutter and distraction by default. Before you’ve made any decision about the environment, other parties, not the user, have designed the environment and decided what it will do to and for the user.
Self-Discipline and The Slot Machine
Second, the computer is meant to make your life easier, if you use it to distract yourself, it is assisting and reinforcing the negative behavior and bad habits you wish to eliminate. Yes, it facilitates this, but ideally you would be able to prevent it from doing so. Surprisingly, smartphones have more features in this regard. You can put your phone into a focus mode to minimize distractions. Windows 10 has no such feature, indeed, the distractions are what it considers to be features. Ostensibly, these features are meant to add value to you, but I think we all know there are perverse incentives.
A gambler wants to gamble, but at times, wants to stop. The slot machine assists with the former, and does all it can to prevent the latter. Truly, nothing stops the gambler from simply walking away and never gambling again, but as you may have already gathered, we’re not talking about mere wants, we’re talking about instinctual reactions, hormonal drives, and reinforced neural pathways. Intellectually, the gambler knows he wants to quit, but sub-consciously, down to the very linking of his neurons, he does not want to. Feelings of victory, satiation of curiosity, the endorphin rush of clicking on the news ticker and maybe seeing a pretty woman, or a dangerous warzone, or a cute dog, or a lost child. Spinning the wheel one more time. Maybe this one will be better than the last.
Unlike a television, the computer user usually sits at the computer with a task in mind. A goal is on the horizon, and there are activities that will bring that goal closer. At that point, the goal of the computer is to assist with those activities. But the capacity to become distracted by stocks, the weather, games, and myriad marmots is built in to the experience. This is a feature. An anti-feature.
Technology can help you find anything! Except focus.
Someone suffering from ADHD posited his preferred Terminal-based applications was due to fewer distractions. This may be true, and certainly you will encounter fewer distractions in a framebuffer than in a GUI, but I think the terminal applications simply lack support for distractions. I write this now in a session of i3 (a minimalist Window Manager quite incapable of taskbar sloths) with Emacs set to full screen. If I need a full web browser, I hold Win and press 3. This switches to a desktop with a full screen browser. I do not see the browser behind my writing, nor in the titlebar in my periphery. The entirely of my screen is (glorious) Emacs. Every pixel of my display is dedicated to the task at hand. No sloths allowed (unless you add one yourself, it IS Emacs, after all).
The author’s hurried rendition of a sloth. Care of emacs artist mode
..... . ... ...
+++... ........ .. . ..........
-.m..--. ..-....+...
........... ......... ....
..-..-m##m+... ..-..+##*#... ..+.
.... ..+####m--... ...+%######-... ..-
. .......###m%-... ...++*%###*.-.... . ..
.................. . ............... . %m . -
..+ . .. -.-. ......-. .........+ -. .- .-... - .
.. * -++.m ### + % .. .. -- . +.-m ..-- ..- -+. ..+ --.-..-.. .
- . . ..# -# #+#m #*. . - . .- -+. *-.- -...-.. m-... .m---
. . .--..--.m+...++m.... ##% %%-+## +- .- .%m*+. ..-% - .% +. *m+ ##-.++m-++-.
. . ..-- .-+-*--%...-- - .. .. +.. *## #m+ . .. .--m- .. . + - +-.m++--..+##-.+ -.
. - +-.. ++ m.. .#-#m#+ +.+-m*+-.. . .... *#m mm . . . . . ... . ..-.m --.%+-.. ---
-- + ...... . ...%mm+mm-.m-.+-m- -.m#-.. ... .. -. . . . . -.... .* - +.-.+...
. -..-.m+m- ..+-m m .. .-- . .+. - .. - +% ...- .... . -.. . . . .. .. ..-+m...m.%.-.--
.. .+-m%.%%-+. ++ .+-. - . .- ..- . ......- .. ..... ..... m+. . . . .. + - -m+#m+.m..
-.m+m#*m+ .- - - .. -. . . . ..-. .+ ---.+. ... .............. . %- - - . -. ... . . + ..m#-.m..
.++-*-#.-m. ... . + .- ... . .%.m.m - . .. .-..-..---. +-.%-....... ... . -- -. -....
--#*..-+... . .. + . . . . . .. . - -% .. . - -..-..+ -%%*.+ . - - +....- . . ....... -.. ..
....m#.-+- ..+ . -..-.m.+-.--. -.- .- -. ..-#*.--..m .. +- * - m*- -+.. .- -.-m -.. ....... . .. + . ..
..++- m.. . *m--. -.+ -m+-- .. .. . .* - + # %+-+* m. .-.-.. . ..+-.. . - . .. .
.... -.. --m . . #.m#m+-- . . .-+.. . + ..+m%m . .+. .-.. %%*++... . .
. .. .. . + %. %%.. . . . --* -++- ..+ . . . #+- .. .
...+ . -. . -.. - . . .-
+..... . . .
- .- .
Multitasking is ersatz productivity
The speed afforded by modern computers has allowed the ability to simulate muti-tasking. This was a mistake. While I cannot argue the utility of playing music while writing and referencing a PDF on another screen, we have gone too far in this direction. If the computer could only “focus” on one program at a time, such that background processed were almost entirely disallowed, there would be less working against the user’s intent.
Limits. Glorious limits!
In the days of limited resources, background processed were a pest to be extinguished. There is (or used to be) a whole category of software promising to help you reclaim your RAM by terminating extraneous processes, now I don’t believe that is the case. Much like the pre-high-speed internet browsing experience, it may have been slower, but it had more information relevant to the user per kilobyte than today. Check how many megabytes are transferred through a browser for a single page today. You can check how much RAM (and therefore approximate resources) your current program is using, and compare to your total RAM to see what your computer is actually doing, while you, the actual user unitask.
Help or Hinder?
Technology is, at best, a contributor to your intents, and at worst, an adversary. What is our desired relationship with these various technologies? A wristwatch is a passive sentinel of time, interrupting only to call the bells of the hour. If it were to tell you that you need milk when you intend to check the time you may be grateful for it or frustrated by it. Maybe both. The only difference is what you will accept. As the mission creep of each of these technologies absorbs more and more tasks it is not only easy to let it happen; it is the default position. One must actively fight the creep. Your bluetooth toaster needs an update before it can process your bagel. You DID set up the toaster wifi, right?
The Bog of Eternal Tech
Once, I called the computer a viscous fluid against which you must struggle to accomplish your tasks. Years later, as I write this, I can’t help but see the computing experience similarly, as a mire or bog. The user identifies his goal; an island of land, and approaches the bog’s shore where the path is shortest and wades in. Vines, sloths, and tickers pull at his arms as he struggles toward his mark. As he nears his goal faces begin to appear in the waters, faces in The Dead Marshes calling out “WAR!” “PESTILENCE!” “CANDY CRUSH!” “HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA!” Eventually the correct bait is found and the user’s eyes flicker toward, away, then back again. Soon they glaze and dull. Wits weaken. The user sinks slowly into the siren’s embrace. Only to emerge hours later on a wikipedia article about toilet paper orientation. What should you be doing instead of reading this?
Today Takes Everything 