Too Many Apps

There’s an app for that.

No thanks, I hear more and more people reply.

Apps are often touted as the hack we need for greater ease and productivity in our work and life.

As we scroll through he countless apps hiding on our phones - squares within squares within squares - we wonder what many of them are for. Oh, yes, these 6 are the different photo editing apps I thought I’d try. Oh, this one looked interesting until I realised it was full of in-app purchases. Oh, these ever-growing bunch over here are the associated apps for the appliances in my house - everything from the washing machine to the pool cleaner.

And, that’s before we get started with the hundred and one different ways to keep track of your to-do’s, laying dormant on our devices as we revert back to pen and paper, or management by post-it notes.

Many apps are useful for solving our problems, which is great, although many exist simply because they can. Every app eats into our technological and human bandwidth, and it’s no wonder we find ourselves saying, enough.

As we reflect on the balance between productivity and ease in our work and life, it may be worth asking, do I need an app for that?

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