This piece is not a grandma’s letter of complaint on the endangered nature of a green chutney that was once handmade with care and precision worth hours, and is now rushed through electric grinders minutes before serving. It is rather a semi-microscopic observation of the way convenience walks in with consequences — consequences that might sometimes be slow-poisoning a culture.
Today, we demand a crash course on everything. And while it does come in handy, we often miss out on the extra sparkle a full-length course might provide. Food, work, entertainment, connections — each category has been marked with the handprint of convenience; and though the gains count, this article primarily highlights what is lost in the process.
Artificial Work, Artificial Connections
It is common knowledge that artificial intelligence tools have massively taken over work, education, and even daily life conversations. Not only is AI helping us with assignments, applications, and presentations, we use it for things as simple as everyday work and study emails. The result? Rotting potential.
It is now also available as your chatting partner across various social media platforms with perfect listening and advising abilities. Convenient, right? But what is lost in the practice is real human connection, honesty with your work and yourself, and the maximum possible use of your own brain!
We can connect to our loved ones through a phone call or text across any possible distance, but because it is too easy to acquire, we often unnecessarily miss out on what it feels like to physically sit beside them and talk without a screen’s worth of limitation.
The Changing Value of Art and Entertainment
Convenience does not only contaminate work and connections; it transcends to almost every form of entertainment. Generations keep getting smart enough to ensure that while everything is already made available to watch from the comfort of your bed, it is also easy on the pocket!
Today, there are more options to illegally watch a show for free than there are to watch it the right way. Similarly, art suffers at the hand of automated aid. What was once carefully crafted by hand can now be produced via one-click services.
Does that mean the passion an artist once carried has lost all value? This is where we are exposed to the imbalance convenience (for some) creates in society. Speed for one slows life down for another.
Apprenticeship: A Lost Concept?
YouTube, on the other hand, is the perfect skill-learning hub. That is where I learnt to crochet and how thousands of other people probably do too.
But now that I think about it, it would have been so much more meaningful to have learnt it from my grandmother. I would have bonded with her in the process; I would have learnt more about her and vice versa. I could have used it as the perfect opportunity to avoid a screen while getting something productive done.
It is not to say that learning from the internet is problematic, but I could perhaps add a lot more to the experience otherwise.
How Convenience Kills Patience
When everything is served to you on your plate, even the thought of getting up to fetch it for yourself tires you out. That is perhaps the problem with the low-effort lifestyle we have almost completely adopted.
Out of all the things we silently eliminate from life while trying to avoid effort, patience precedes it all. A thirty-second reel played at 2x speed has become the new standard. We have sacrificed our attention span to rapidly rewarding bits of information and entertainment so much so that reading a book has turned into a longing.
The resulting lack of patience is not only restricted to what we consume; it significantly affects our relationships. We cannot stand somebody talking to us for too long, will refuse to do chores that require attention and time, and will certainly dread long, extensive explanations or details coming from somebody concerning any matter.
But the bigger problem with convenience is that, like most other things, it may not always be promised. “Smart work, not hard work” may stand its ground, but struggle always has a story to tell — and a story always carries a lesson, and the ability to bring about a shift unfathomable.