Complexity Overload
How many user names and passwords do you have? Do you need passwords with exactly six or eight or ten characters including as least one numeric character and one non-alphabetic or non-numeric character? How often are you required to change them for security reasons? Do you have a list, tucked away physically or electronically that helps you manage this information? In general, how do you keep track of all the essentials of connectivity?
Many of these user names and passwords enable access to websites for your bank accounts, investment accounts, airlines, various utilities, seemingly endless retailers, and countless news sites. For the most part, transactions on these websites are easy and successful. However, when something goes wrong, e.g., a credit card or an address is not acceptable, it can take enormous effort to straighten things out.
The problem, of course, is that there is no knowledgeable human to ask for help. Some sites provide a phone number to call for help; some of the helpers are actually knowledgeable. Many sites, however, provide limited or no access to help. The objective of the enterprises associated with these sites is, I assume, to minimize labor costs. Further, they expect to regularly lose irritated customers and see this as just part of business.
This ever-growing connectivity infrastructure provides us with a vast number of choices of ways to spend (or possibly invest) our money and consume seemingly endless goodies and entertainment. Beyond these benefits, what are the costs of this wild west of opportunities? Certainly there are occasional frustrations as noted above. There is also sporadic electronic fraud that might affect one of your credit cards or retail accounts, e.g., the recent Target fiasco.
More pervasively, how do you feel about unknown entities that know every online transaction and cellular call you make? How about their knowing every email you send, every movie you watch and every download you make? How about their knowing your every keystroke? Of course, we willingly give up all this information in exchange for the things we seek. By searching, downloading, etc., we “opt in” to divulging the basic transactions of most of our lives.
If you reflect on all of the above, the complexity of everyday life has increased substantially. The number of things you need to know and relationships you need to manage has burgeoned. The probability, albeit extremely small, that all your assets could suddenly disappear is very real. When you call about your suddenly zeroed accounts, you will hear, “Chose 7 if your account balances are now zero.” Once you choose 7, you will hear, “Our customer support center for this service is open on Tuesdays between 7:00 and 8:00AM, IST (India Standard Time).”
