Hentrietta Hay's Column

I spent an unreasonable part of a recent vacation fighting my favorite machine - a computer. A software program that I have been using and loving for a year or so has been upgraded and "improved". "Improved" is the manufacturer's word. The program has several highly sophisticated and very impressive new features. But it requires extra steps getting there and learning new procedures. The new things that it will do are very impressive, but they don't add anything to the use I make of the program, and they make it much more complex to use.

Several months ago a program we use in the Library to order books electronically was upgraded. In order to get it to do automatically several things that I had been doing manually, the upgrade greatly increased the amount of time it takes me to send an order. I went back to using the old program.

Good coffee makers used to allow hot water to drip through coffee and then keep the brew hot indefinitely. Now they come with clocks and grinders and timers that you can pre-set by computer. But the new ones cost more, break down faster and, when you come right down to it, don't make better coffee.

Now I am a computer lover and am related closely to a computer program designer. But this is ridiculous. Where does progress end and extra work begin? Maybe we need to separate the technological bread and butter most of us need from the Beef Wellington that most of us can't afford.

Way back in the '40's when a social conscience was beginning to sneak up on me, I kept thinking I was being profound when I said often and loudly that technology had outstripped the human ability to absorb it. Maybe I was right! We need to understand that "improvements" sometimes mean better products, but not always. And we need to know the difference.

I could have stuck with the lower level of my computer program, but I chose the upgrade and am stuck with the need to understand it. If I choose the elaborate coffee maker I am stuck to pay for it and keep it in repair. But I don't have to do that and my breakfast will taste just as good. But I still get to choose.

We are not slaves of technology, but sometimes we think we are. I am especially vulnerable because I love gadgets. I always drool over the expresso machines, and the food processors that do everything but eat and, yes, new computer programs. My favorite piece of jewelry lights up when I touch it.

But we need to be able to choose which things we want. If the improvements don't really make the product better, but merely add bells and whistles, or actually make it harder to use, we can reject it. Product development sometimes needs to quit when it is ahead.

All of which is not to say that I want to return to the coal stove. I just want to keep my options open and my choices wide and I expect manufacturers and software writers to make it possible. Or, in somewhat more graphic language, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.