Recently I heard the local radio station going on about how their producer wants an office chair that would roll itself and this led to a discussion on how technology has made us lazier.
It is irrefutable that technology has made our lives ten times easier. I no longer get lost navigating to new areas or have to deal with carrying a Walkman around just to enjoy music. However, has all this ease turn us into lazy bums?
A quick Google search proves that there are a plethora of apps out that enables us to refine the art of couch potato-ness while other people run around completing our chores. The first one on the list and my personal favorite (because I find it unnecessary) is the BroApp.
If you follow the link, BroApp is basically an app that sends messages to your significant other for you. Messages like, “Good morning, sweetheart” can be programmed to be sent at the time she wakes up and so on. Their tagline promises you more time with your bros because you are freed from the ‘burden’ of texting your girlfriend.
In simple words, you are outsourcing your relationship to an app available for free. This totes laziness to whole new level as you don’t even have to do anything to maintain the façade of caring and wanting to know how your significant other’s day went. The best part is; they even have safety measures to ensure that they don’t catch you using that app.
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Need to run to the store for some groceries but too lazy to? Your dog needs a bath but you just can’t bring yourself to step away from the laptop? No worries. Taskrabbit is the app for you. This app lures in clients by promising that you would have more time to explore your loves when those pesky everyday tasks are delegated to TaskRabbits. You just have to tell them what task you need done and name your price. If the chore is recurrent, you just have to set them in advance and conveniently strike them off your to-do list forever.
However, the price of laziness does not come cheap. One of the most popular tasks, grocery shopping, averages at 35 US Dollars. However, this phenomenon seems to have caught on with clones like FlagAHero, Juubs and Taskporter cropping up in sunny Singapore.
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The last app featured here is one that allows you to skip annoying queues in Starbucks or the local hardware store. Alternatively, if you are a workaholic that loathes to be torn away from your desk to answer your grumbling stomach, Postmates solves your problem with a simple tap. Postmaters promises to deliver your heart’s wants and needs in less than an hour with the added advantage of real-time tracking and ETAs to check if your Postmater is slacking off. Honestly, this app seems less of a lazy man’s option but more of a convenience to busy urbanites. After all, it isn’t everyday that you can check off buying stationery and a breakfast burrito at the same time. Heck, Postmates even boasts on being a life changing app for their customers.
At the end of the day, these kinds of apps are not necessarily the reason why we are lazy. It is fairer to say that those who are more inclined to laziness would use these apps for that reason while others may utilize them for convenience sake.
However, a fine line still lies between laziness and convenience; having an app that sends out automatic messages to your significant other run deeps into lazy territory (not to mention slightly douche bag-like).
The services that these apps offer do not come cheap though and they give me the impression that the users are mainly high flying executives that are too busy working to tend to daily chores. It is frightening to know that some people predict that humanity may soon turn into the people we saw in Disney’s Wall-E and these apps (potentially) bring us one step closer to that prediction.
The Taskrabbit app is tempting though. I am off to Google for Malaysian clones and search for a poor soul willing to clear my desk. I am not lazy; my desk simply needs professional help.
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