The comment rankled me.
It came at a marketing meetup. I was in the audience, watching intently as a representative from Microsoft held court on stage.
Voice assistants were the emerging frontier in tech at the time. Features with names like Siri and Alexa would listen to verbal prompts on your smartphone or smart speaker and volley back answers.
Microsoft’s Cortana was in that arena too. But many consumers didn’t bother to notice.
Now the representative was turning to marketers to hype up the service, in hopes that we would evangelize it to the masses. And he was using another tech service – the Uber rideshare app – to make his point.
Think about the process of hailing an Uber, the Microsoft rep said. You open the app, look for available drivers and request a ride.
Now, what if Cortana could recognize this pattern in your schedule and hail the ride for you? Wouldn’t that be cool?
All around me, audience members gasped in amazement. But I stared daggers at a spot just behind the representative’s left shoulder.
Was tapping a button on our smartphones that much of a chore? Had we really become that complacent?
When I was 8 years old, I knew how to do several things.
I could read. I could write. I could divide 60 by 4.
But I couldn’t look people in the eye when I was talking to them. And I couldn’t offer them a firm handshake.
My third-grade teacher wasn’t having any of this. She worked tirelessly with me until I got those fundamentals down.
The lessons stuck.
I’m still mindful of where my eyes are when I’m speaking. And I take pride in a firm handshake.
For many 8-year-olds these days, eye contact and handshakes are the least of their social deficiencies. And it’s not necessarily because they’re battling developmental disorders, as I was at that age.
It has more to do with iPads, YouTube, and virtual reality games.
Many parents give their children access to these devices and services at an early age. They’re meant to entertain, to placate, and to keep parity with the kids’ peers – who likely have the same electronics in their hands.
This trend – accelerated by the effects of a global pandemic – has become a scapegoat in the decline in social skills among our youth. Some critics believe that solving this crisis simply requires shutting off screens.
But I believe the problem is much deeper.
You see, it’s the thought behind the screens that’s most insidious. It’s the concept of complacency as a childhood development strategy that has done us so wrong.
I get why this has happened. The world is more complicated and frightening than ever. Parents feel inclined to protect their kids from the unpleasantness of it all.
Those electronic devices serve as immersive extensions of the humble pacifier. They combat uncertainty by keeping children anchored in place.
Still, this shift is not without stark costs.
How will these kids learn to engage with the world around them? How will they learn to go after what they want? How will they find the courage to take some calculated risks along the way?
They won’t, and they don’t. We’ve made sure of it.
Complacency is a bad seed. And we reap what we sow.
The vision that Microsoft employee shared was the tip of the iceberg.
These days, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence have eclipsed voice assistants.
Much of our lives are managed in the background by computers. We don’t even need to say a word.
Take delivery, for instance. Once the purview of local pizzerias and Chinese restaurants with bicycle fleets, delivery services now cross cuisines and vehicle types. Some even extend to supermarkets and big box retailers.
These services are built on our complacency. They capitalize on the vision of consumers lounging in pajamas all day, and they charge us a premium for the privilege of convenience. Tack on fees and tips for couriers, and we often pay double what we would if we went to the store or restaurant ourselves.
The entire premise of all this is absurd. We’re paying a premium to stay in, and we’re paying that premium as much as we possibly can. The delivery services’ attempts to hook us into subscriptions don’t help matters. Neither do delivery-only offers from restaurants.
Complacency is entrenched in our society, even as its costs accelerate. And I struggle to understand why.
Isn’t this a nation built on hard work and determination? Isn’t improvement part of our ethos?
Not anymore, apparently.
Doing less is in vogue. And we’re worse for it.
Back when I was 8-years-old — and learning the art of a firm handshake in school — I’d spend one weekend with my grandparents each month.
They lived across town. Close enough to make this arrangement tenable, but far enough that I packed an overnight bag.
The mornings would generally start the same. I’d dart around the house, full of energy. And I’d find my grandfather sitting in his favorite chair with a pencil in his hand and the New York Times on his lap.
He was poring over the crossword puzzle.
Now and then, I’d try to help him with the puzzle clues. But I only had so many words in my vocabulary. So, I’d often resort to my favorite one: Why?
Why are you always doing this, grandpa? And why can’t you complete it sometimes?
My grandfather told me both questions had the same answer. He was hoping to stay mentally sharp by repeating this exercise, even if he couldn’t fill in every answer every day.
That lesson has stuck with me for decades. I might not pore over crossword puzzles — or Sudoku or Wordle, for that matter. But I’ve made staying sharp a habit.
This quest has taken disparate forms. Engaging in physical activity. Mastering the art of cooking. Writing this column each week.
But the ethos is constant – to build on yesterday. To get more out of myself. To unlock better.
The fire burns deep within me. And the spark of it all was my grandfather’s crossword puzzle.
Sometimes I wonder if I would have found that epiphany growing up in this era. With the way the deck is stacked, I’m tempted to say no.
And yet, the tenets of desire are still out there. We can still strive for improvement, if we’re willing to wade through the sea of complacency to get there.
It’s a difficult mission, no doubt. A path that we’re not exactly inclined to follow.
But follow it we must. For our betterment. For our future.
So, let’s put complacency in the rear-view mirror. The journey forward starts now.