We’re being duped into thinking smart devices are making our lives better. Visit any crowdfunding site and you’ll see campaigns for every imaginable smartphone-connected gizmo under the sun, each promising relief from a “harrowing first-world problem.” There’s the “smart” propane scale that lets you monitor the fuel level in your backyard grill, so that—horror of horrors—you don’t run out of propane during a barbecue. Or the $110 bike lock that promises to “eliminate the hassle” of a forgotten bike-lock combination by operating via your iPhone. Such devices initially seem advanced (“Never worry about propane again!”), but in reality they are just basic tweaks on existing products, with an added layer of “superfluous computing.” Even the most popular smart devices “seem to solve problems that have already been solved. The Internet of Things is “enclosing ordinary life within computational casings” and handing tech companies vast amounts of data on our daily habits. Is this really all Silicon Valley has to offer us? (Ian Bogost,The Atlantic)

Worse than that, they are taking up the most important thing we have least of – time. As you get older you are painfully aware of the finite-ness of our time on this earth and the futility of much of what we have to do. I don’t want to learn how to operate even more electronic gizmos. I don’t want to be studied, analysed and advertised to by faceless corporations (or governments). I want to be out there enjoying the sunset or drawing a beautiful piece of scenery. I don’t want to be wrestling with an email system, for instance, over-designed for every conceivable eventuality. I don’t want to spend prescious days trying to get an electronic health monitor working, only to return it to the manufacturer. Epicurus wandered in his garden thinking about life. Perhaps we should simplify our lives and follow his example.