Why is 21st C life so stressful

Witzend

My mother is no longer here, so I can’t ask her how stressful she found living in London with a baby during the blitz, and wondering every time there was a knock on the door whether it’d be a telegram to say that my father (RN, N Atlantic convoys) would never be coming home.

My mother did chat to me sometimes about how things were for her during the war, with two young boys, trying to make do on rations and, like your mother, with a husband away in the RN without any communication, sometimes for months.
My MIL said she tried not to cry in front of a very young DH when she had a telegram to say her husband was 'Missing, Presumed Dead' but did hope for a long time that he might just walk in again.

That was stressful. Much of today's life are over-complicated irritations when, in fact, these advances were supposed to make life easier for us all.

If you read the posts Allira you will notice that it's not comparing like with like.
We know that.
But still modern life, if you are a bit older, is like learning a foreign language!

😀

Oui!

I find this century extremely stressful.
Everything that I do seems to be complicated .
I was two and half hours on the phone trying to renew my house insurance.
I spoke to four people .
I got cut off
I listened to a lot of music .
It is still not resolved .

Then one of my deliveries didn't come.
More time on the phone .
The problem was dealt with in South Africa
There's mistakes on the invoice .
Recently,I've had to walk home with my shopping .
It took me over two hours .
No notification that the buses were cancelled .
If it's not the above it's trying to get an appointment at the GP 's surgery .
I also have had the most appalling rudeness at the local civic centre -it has taken six trips.
I actually burst into tears during two of them .

If all is working well online all is well. If it goes wrong and specific advice is needed then it’s generally a nightmare. Two or three exceptions so far are Octopus, Hastings Insurance and Emirates.

Yesterday I was trying to book a ticket to NZ and the site just got stuck several times and I was spitting feathers! Found the telephone number, called and it was answered very quickly and then resolved.

It still was very stressful trying to do things online that don’t work.

*Silverbrook" I just don't agree. DH was a computer programmer, later a Uni lecturer in IT systems. I was an Accountant in a highly computerised industry. We were both experts as computer users.

You cite your bank as an example. I do loads of online banking, both for our family and the several organisations of which I am Treasurer. All is well till they change the system. Poor online explanations, and often the first non-standard thing I want to do is impossible without a long wait for an advisor, or those stupid pop-up "people" to ask who don't recognise what you are asking.

Last month we swapped our bank account for the first time in 40 years. The website was impossible to understand and necessitated several long calls - and even the "advisor" on the phone had to put us on hold to check her answers with someone else! I still don't know how to get online to check our transactions. It must be assumed that everyone knows how to do such things.

As for using our mobile phones (and even more so our SMART TV) many things are beyond us. For one thing I am not good with "visuals", e.g which button means what. The icon on the button often means nothing to me. Why can't it say "ON/OFF instead of some symbol that I don't understand.

Years ago I was in a class of would-be teachers where the majority of "pupils" were non-mathematical people. The tutor insisted that a pie-chart was much better to display proportions that would be a list of percentages, but even before he had opened his mouth to say this I (and a fellow accountant in the class) had converted the "slices" into percentages!

And despite being mobile phone users since they were invented we still struggle to use Apps. I'm sure lots of others agree that unless you use these regularly you forget how to do so.

I went into a bank branch in the city recently to set up sending money to my DGS in NZ.
I had attempted it on line but it was confusing and the receiving bank wasn't recognised.
The bank assistant was a life saver.
She took a wee while but she sorted it.
It is her job after all, not mine.

I think here is an arrogance in the assumption that everyone is doing this that and the other online and one must be living under a rock if your shopping,banking and household bills aren’t managed through apps.
These are all well and good if you fully understand how they work, and you feel confident and secure.
There is an awful lot of nerdy waffle in the instructions to follow sometimes which makes it worse when it is something that “must” be done.
It is stressful because too often after multiple attempts at logging into or registering an account for something important one has to give up and the original need or task remains undone.

Madmeg. I have a similar professional background, 50 years working in accounting and IT, so my approach to many things is through logic.

I can only speak of my own personal experience in the 20th and 21st centuries.

I have been banking online for about 25 years across a variety of platforms for both domestic and business banking and have rarely encountered any problems. I have money spread across several banks and building societies and find all of the online systems and apps easy to use.

I’ve had an iPhone since they were introduced in 2007 (when I was 52, I’m now 69) and a smart TV since 2020. I find both very easy to use. There was a little bit of admin involved in the set up of the TV, setting up accounts for each app so they can synch across three devices, my TV, laptop and phone, but once done it’s done.

I’ve been a widow all that time so I am used to figuring things out for myself and did anyway when DH was alive. Generally, I’m not fazed by anything new and just take my time to understand how things work. It's part of the job of an analyst/designer/programmer to do so. I read instructions and FAQs and while that sounds obvious, I am aware that a lot of people don’t.

I don’t understand what you mean by not understanding On/Off. The universal symbol for this is a circle broken at the top with a vertical line through it (or sometimes a solid circle with an enclosed vertical line. It’s an amalgam of the binary 0 and 1 - two states - off or on - which your husband should certainly understand as binary logic and binary number systems are what underpins all IT systems.

I’m sitting here with three remote control devices, for the smart TV, for the Humax recorder and the sound bar and all have the same symbol.

Pie charts are a visual representation of fractions or percentages. Some will think a quarter, others will think 25%. I tend to use the terms interchangeably depending on the size of the slice. I’m more likely to say 10% than one-tenth.

Forgetting how to do something really isn’t the fault of the app or the app developer but like learning and doing anything, ease of use comes with confidence and practice.

Granmarderby10

I think here is an arrogance in the assumption that everyone is doing this that and the other online and one must be living under a rock if your shopping,banking and household bills aren’t managed through apps.
These are all well and good if you fully understand how they work, and you feel confident and secure.
There is an awful lot of nerdy waffle in the instructions to follow sometimes which makes it worse when it is something that “must” be done.
It is stressful because too often after multiple attempts at logging into or registering an account for something important one has to give up and the original need or task remains undone.

Agree!!

I moved to a more "old-fashioned" part of the country 12 years ago - and I can certainly see the advantages of that now (ie being in what is often called "The land that time forgot" - as this area is sometimes described). I do wish I had the amount of facilities and the reliability level I'm used to having - but these days I can see the plus side of:

- I've only come across one place here that refuses cash.
- Tickets to social events are sold in the "modern/techno" way . However, I can still just turn up and pay for my ticket on the door in the usual way.
- At least there's one building society here that's walking distance away from my home and, by their own admission, they're very "old-fashioned" and so they still operate only with cash and cheques. Nice and handy to just go in, sit down, have an assistant who has got to know you by now and then hand over/take out cash and cheques and have a physical passbook that the transactions are recorded in.

I know some branches of Tesco are now planning to refuse cash - but I doubt the one here would dare to (as this is such a "cash" area).

I think some carparking machines have been changed to function by app only now - but that and the hotel that refuses cash are the only places I can think of here that can't be operated the traditional way.

Fingers crossed that, if anywhere in the country manages to hang onto our normal (copper) phonelines for our landline phones it would be here....

It sounds idyllic, Cariad

I left my smart phone on the plane going to NZ last year, when changing planes at Qatar. I never got it back but survived not only the journey but a month in NZ without access to numbers, emails, Facebook , camera.
It was very peaceful and quiet. A real holiday.

I borrowed an old phone for keeping in contact with my son while there
but on arrival home in Edinburgh, there was no public phone at the airport and even the airline check-in counter told me they weren't to use their phones, security issues so to call a friend to collect me at 6am I had to ask a porter if I could call her.

Yes it was hard for our grgrandparents. 2 of them had 17 children and lost 10. How do u cope with that? Mygrandmother lost a son in ww1, then a son from epilepsy. I have a terminally ill son now, and it's breaking my heart. Apps and call centres are annoying, but just have to cope with them.

That's so terrible for you Les.
It must be very annoying seeing everyone
grumble about technology.
Don't look!

I think we should start a thread about our DGP, who, as you say, all struggled
with much worse things. A kind of celebration of them.

Thank u Granmaretto. I do family history, so found out about grgrandparents, which we never knew.

Les1950

Yes it was hard for our grgrandparents. 2 of them had 17 children and lost 10. How do u cope with that? Mygrandmother lost a son in ww1, then a son from epilepsy. I have a terminally ill son now, and it's breaking my heart. Apps and call centres are annoying, but just have to cope with them.

Agreed.

Mum's brothers were all pilots, taken down by flak. None lived through the war. I've suffered 4 miscarriages. Our daughter was a young widow.

Apps and call centers annoy me, but nothing compares to young death, imo.

I find my life is much less stressful if I avoid political posts. Stream an old movie like The Maltese Falcon ot His Girl Friday. Watch YouTube clips of people dancing. Do a crossword puzzle. Take your kids to dinner. Scientists agree: even under the worst-case environmental predictions, most of our descendants will simply move to Canada & live there happily ever after. Take up knitting & baking to satisfy your need for creativity. Do crossword puzzles & sudoku to keep your brain active. Walk outside at least 30 minutes a day. Smile & say hi to people. Find a volunteer activity. My husband died of cancer 2 years ago. I had to sell the house & put down 2 dogs. I was coping with dental surgery gone horribly wrong. Last year my femur broke & I struggled with physical therapy but I was determined to walk unassisted & for the most part I do. Ignore the news that distresses you. Read books that make you laugh. Put on your favorite playlist & dance. Weirdly, if you act happy, even if it's just an act at first, you become happy.

Very good advice FranD0618
Will print it out.

The news, that stresses me and I am always in tears seeing how people are being treated. Not watching it, it should be called Bad News.
Another stress is trying to speak to a person on the phone, I had a message from the Tax Office, couldn't get on line to get my problem sorted, the virtual assistant was as much use as a chocolate teapot, you can’t email them, you phone and have to listen to messages for an hour and are then cut off. A human being could have sorted it with correct information in ten minutes
All these passwords for different sites which i can’t find when I need them, I have a book but sometimes with the best will, I forget to record a change.

I like your advice too Fran.

It can be hard to follow when you're in the thick of it....

Grammaretto

It sounds idyllic, Cariad

I left my smart phone on the plane going to NZ last year, when changing planes at Qatar. I never got it back but survived not only the journey but a month in NZ without access to numbers, emails, Facebook , camera.
It was very peaceful and quiet. A real holiday.

I borrowed an old phone for keeping in contact with my son while there
but on arrival home in Edinburgh, there was no public phone at the airport and even the airline check-in counter told me they weren't to use their phones, security issues so to call a friend to collect me at 6am I had to ask a porter if I could call her.

Yep....it does take away our independence if we have to ask for something to be done for us that we are used to doing for ourselves/still intend to do for ourselves. I don't want to be forced into borrowing the use of someone else's phone in an emergency - I just want a landline phone available (eg coinbox) that I can use myself...just as I've been used to. I don't feel "guilty" about the - very occasional - time I have to ask for a bit of help I never used to have to ask for - as it wasnt my choice to "change everything". I'm still perfectly capable of doing things the "traditional" way....

Do not realise now much these days, we depend on our' go-everywhere with us' Smarpthones.

I was away for a weekend recently, travelling firstly to stay with my eldest daughter in London - I travel by trains in my electric wheelchair. As the train drew out of my local station I realised I had left my phone behind at home!!!! Silly of me, but could do nothing at that point, Normally, as I start on the last leg of this journey (train from Liverpool St station to her local station), I telephone her to confirm the train I have she walks down to the station to meet me.

Had another daughter leaving my home town later that day, driving and she has keys to my flat, so could have easily collected my phone for me (and warned my other daughter not to expect that arrival phone call - BUT did not have a single telephone number in my head - so reliant had I become on using that smart phone for all calls. The ONLY telephone number I could remember was my London daughter's old landline number, which I know she had long since discontinued usage..
Yes, I do keep all those numbers written down - in my diary, which was sitting together with my phone at home!!!
Made for a distressing journey as I knew my daughter would be worried at the lack of my phone call - and she was!!!! If I had a telephone number in my head I could have asked a fellow passenger if I could use their phone for that one call = I usually find that the combination of my silver grey head of hair, the wheelchair (and being female) does tend to get most people being very helpful.

keepingquiet

Something I say often ftm420.

Yesterday I spent hours trying to get through to someone regarding my new contract for gas and electric.

Then it was my broadband contract, replying to an e-mail I had received saying my contract was about to expire. I don't have a mobile contract but they kept putting me though to people who wanted to upgrade my mobile account.

After about 90 minutes the issue still wasn't resolved because there were two issues and they could only deal with one at a time, two days apart. Even though they e-mailed me saying my contract was about the end- the actual expiry date was June- so they told me to ring back in a few weeks!

Then it was my TV license- they thanked me for renewing it in an e-mail but no money had gone from my account. Again, I was worried the license hadn't actually renewed so I rang up.
It isn't due to be renewed for three more weeks!

Of course my mum and grandparents had very stressful lives but that sort of thinking doesn't help people who find negotiating on-line contracts and e-mails very difficult and stressful, maybe not in the same way but these things can be very challenging for some of us.

Was the broadband issue with Vodaphone, by any chance? You have just described almost_exactly_ the same problems that I had with them last year, and which have just started to happen again this year!

Granmarderby10

I think here is an arrogance in the assumption that everyone is doing this that and the other online and one must be living under a rock if your shopping,banking and household bills aren’t managed through apps.
These are all well and good if you fully understand how they work, and you feel confident and secure.
There is an awful lot of nerdy waffle in the instructions to follow sometimes which makes it worse when it is something that “must” be done.
It is stressful because too often after multiple attempts at logging into or registering an account for something important one has to give up and the original need or task remains undone.

I agree with you 100%.

Just reading your very accurate and realistic description of the problems that so frequently arise has been enough to trigger my anxiety.

Ridiculous. Former times pre-1900 had no NHS, no unemployment benefits, limited sewage services, poor drinking water, child labour including chimney sweeping, women and children working in the mines, etc.

I am in my earlier 60s and I do find technology challenging.

When things go wrong. For example, when our broadband slowed right down, I was on the phone with our service provider for 30 minutes. She even asked me to unscrew the broadband master socket from the wall.

At the end of the 30 minutes, she said ‘We cannot detect any fault and will be sending our engineer to your house tomorrow morning’.

Three unsuccessful attempts to claim refund from East Midlands Railway and then I give up. When we were selling our overseas property, it took me 11 attempts to scan my husband’s face for facial recognition to access a government portal. If I gave up halfway, the property will remain unsold.