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- <title>Touchscreens, An Essay</title>
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- <h1>Touchscreens, An Essay</h1>
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- <p class="paragraph">So, I recently moved. One of the things that I noticed in the apartment was the stove. Very modern, looked pretty new. It was a glass top stove. One of those fancy stoves, it looks like just a piece of glass sitting on the counter top. Low profile, sleek, no buttons or knobs. All of the controls on it are buttons that you just touch. I have used these a few times in the past, but never really thought much about them. However, now I was going to have to use it for an extended time, for several months. Also at this time, I decided that as a 30 year old adult, maybe I should finally learn how to cook something. So, this stove was a great opportunity, it's new, it's cool, I am excited to start playing around with it.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">I soon learned to hate this stove to a degree that is, honestly, irrational. I have never been more angry about a minor inconvenience in my life as I am about this stove. In reality, the amount of inconvenience it has caused me is incredibly small, it's the utter preventabilty of this minor inconvenience that infuriates me. I am going to spend some time ranting about the stove for a bit, then I will get more to the heart of the matter, excessive touchscreens.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">The stove. The damn stove. First problem, cleaning. Well, you might say to yourself, it's glass, it's flat, it must be easy to clean. More or less, that is true, super simple to clean. However, the problem, of course, is the touchscreen. Let's start by talking about what happens when you get it wet. Say you spray your favorite cleaner on the surface (personally I use my favorite brand, Nameless Blue Liquid), that liquid might just go hog wild activating all the buttons. Ya, apparently just liquid on the stove can press the buttons. If that doesn't happen, then you will definitely press all of the buttons when you try to wipe it. Either way, those buttons are getting pressed, and you have no idea what will happen. Easy enough though, just press them again to turn the stove off right? That's a stupid question, clearly you have never used a smartphone in the rain. It is impossible. Nameless Blue Liquid has now completely hijacked my stove and I can do little or nothing about it. Even when I wipe it off, it is still a bit damp and the buttons don't work properly. At this point I start to mash the buttons harder and harder, as if that is somehow going to help. I have literally had the stove turn on and start to cook the cleaning product while I try to turn it off. Absurd, absolutely absurd. There is a button with a key on it, I think it is a lock for this type of thing. However, I cannot be inconvenienced with taking the 2 minutes out of my day that it would take to figure that out. But think about it, if that is what that button is for, then they had to add extra functionality to this stove, just fix a problem that had never before existed on other, perfectly functional stoves.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Second problem, hot buttons. The bottom two "stove things" (I have no idea what to call them), are literally only a couple centimeters from the buttons. This means several things. The first and most obvious is that the buttons can get super hot at times. I literally might burn myself just attempting to turn the stove off. Who designed this? And more importantly, who green-lit this design? Also, because they are so close, it is very easy to accidentally touch the pan or pot that you are cooking with if you try to use the buttons. You also have to be really careful about the pot or pan that you are using to keep it a reasonable distance from the buttons while still keeping it on the "hot spot". Also, if the pot/pan gets too close to the button, sometimes it will activate it. Seriously, a hot pot/pan can actually press the buttons. Ludicrous.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Third problem, functionality. Remember back in the old days when stoves had those little dials that you had to turn? How quaint. Now, in this modern age of technology, as we move ever forward and improve on those ancient designs, we are privileged to spend 5 minutes pressing 20 different buttons in just the right order so that I can cook a damn egg. This is a prime example of solving problems that don't exist. Those antiquated dials from the past were damn easy to use. You walk up to the stove, turn the dial, and like magic it works. Maybe you have to press a button or something if it is a gas stove. That is it. The dials are usually out of the way of everything, and it is quick. Now listen to this series of steps that I have to take with this modern masterpiece. Press the power button. Press a button indicating which "hot spot" I want to cook on. Press the "up" button 5 or 6 times to get it to the temperature that I want. Of course, I can hold the "up" button if I want, but there are two problems with that. First, it isn't faster, because the button has to wait a second or two to figure out if you are just pressing the button or holding it, then it starts slow anyway. Second, it starts slow, but by the it gets to the number that I want, it is travelling at ludicrous speed, inevitably goes past my desired number, and then I have to press it several times anyway just to bring it back down to where I want it. All of this was done by our ancestors with just a quick turn of their wrists, those fools.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Alright, finally we can get more to the point, and the entire reason that we are here. Touchscreens. The stove is what made me start to think about this, and I wanted to rant about it for a while. However, it is very relevant to the whole touchscreen problem as it illustrates the problem here. Touchscreens do not belong everywhere. Don't get me wrong, touchscreens are a great invention and I am very glad for them. My phone is beautifully functional due to its touchscreen. I am not trying to complain about touchscreens in general, just our idiotic use of them. They don't belong everywhere, they should be used sparingly, only when necessary.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Lets talk about some other things that don't deserve to have touchscreens.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Desktop computers. This one just makes no sense. The mouse and keyboard have been around since as long as the personal computer and are the perfect solution to interacting with it. Why would you scrap that and replace it with a touchscreen. Any person who does serious work on their computer will tell you that you can accomplish very little with a touchscreen. You need a mouse and keyboard. Especially for typing. Typing on a touchscreen is the most aggravating and infuriating thing ever.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Laptop computers. Basically similar to desktop computers. Why? Why do that to yourself? There is no benefit to touchscreen over mouse and keyboard. I can understand this with a 2-in-1 laptop, so that you can use it like a tablet. However, two things. First, tablets are stupid, but that's an argument for another day. Second, you still have to contend with the difficulties of a touchscreen on a laptop. Greasy fingerprints on the screen, accidentally touching the screen when pointing at something, poor support for touchscreens on all desktop operating systems and the list goes on. Do yourself a favor and never get a laptop with a touchscreen. I made this mistake several years ago and am still living with it. I thought it would be so cool and modern to have a touchscreen laptop. It's awful and I regret it every day of my life.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Televisions. These are not terribly common, but I know that they do exist. Ya, great idea, spend a thousand dollars extra for the convenience of getting off the couch to interact with it. Ya, you can still use a remote, but then why have the touchscreen in the first place? Speaking of which, touchscreen remotes. Awful. Old-style buttons are great, easy to find, easy to press and there is a limited number of things that you want to do with a remote, so you don't need a small computer inside a remote to control the damn thing. We figured out the technology of remotes many decades ago, stop trying to "improve" it.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Cars. This may be one of the stupidest places to put touchscreens that I can imagine. You now have to look down at the screen and press a specific spot if you are driving and want to change the volume of the radio. These have definitely made driving much more dangerous. With knobs and buttons, I know exactly where they are and I can reach down to change them without taking my eyes off the road and with much greater ease. Also, if I hit a bump while trying to adjust something, you never know what you are going to press on that touchscreen.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Cameras. Not your phone camera, but purpose-built digital cameras. Buttons are far, far more effective and you don't need to add a touchscreen. Especially terrible are the touchscreens that encompass the entire backside of the camera. So when taking a picture you have to gently hold it by the very edge to make sure that you don't accidentally press something on the touchscreen.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Watches. OK, this one isn't really about touchscreens so much as smartwatches themselves. If you are going to have a tiny computer on your wrist, then I guess you really need a touchscreen. However, smartwatches are really just solving a problem that didn't exist. I hate them and wanted to complain.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Headphones. These are less common and are not necessarily touchscreens, but more like "touch buttons". These touch buttons on Bluetooth headphones were created by Lucifer himself in the depths of hell. I know because I stupidly bought some. Wireless, Bluetooth, controlled by the touch button on them. I have to be so gentle when handling them to not accidentally touch the button and have it do something weird. They disconnect or turn off all the time when I try to adjust them in my ear. What was wrong with the simple buttons from yesteryear? We need to stop fixing problems that don't exist.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Locks. You know, the ones where you enter your pass code for the door to unlock? There are perfectly functional mechanical versions of these with buttons. If you make them touchscreen, then you are just introducing many extra possible points of failure. Now it needs a battery, or to be plugged in. If the battery dies, you are locked out. Also, buttons are simply easier to use because they are tactile. These locks are also less secure because, if it is for a single person, you can see exactly where they touch it and the fingerprints on it.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Touchscreen technology is great, I really love having a touchscreen on my phone, it makes it much more pleasant to use. They just simply do not belong everywhere. In places where they belong, they are great. Everywhere else, they are just incredibly frustrating and terrible. This rant is less about touchscreens than the morons who decide to put them on everything. The only reason that this is done is because people are raccoons. We are attracted to shiny things. We see this new shiny technology and wonder how many things we can put it on instead of wondering where it can be beneficial.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">Touching a screen from which you wish to view things is a terrible idea in general. Your greasy sausage fingers get fingerprints and grease all over the screen. Personally, I have to frequently wipe my phone off because it gets fingerprints all over it. So, if you want to put a touchscreen on something, first you should ask yourself if there is literally any other way that you could accomplish the same thing. Touchscreens should be used only when there is no better option.</p>
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- <p class="paragraph">The next time that you see some new device with a touchscreen, don't think about how cool it is that the thing has a touchscreen, think about whether it makes sense for it to have a touchscreen on it. </p>
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Lee Morgan