Is Technology Actually Terrible or Am I Just a Grumpy Old Man?

I've been a dedicated tech geek pretty much all of the 37 years I've spent on this planet. While I now spend my days testing the latest gear, from the iPhone 16 Pro to electric cars in the Arctic, tech of all kinds has always been in my life. I'd get excited as a kid over Casio watches with built-in calculators. I was obsessed with my family's first Acorn Archimedes home computer, and I'd use tape-based dictation machines to record "radio shows" with my brother, long before podcasting was a thing -- possibly a precursor to both him and I hosting technology podcasts as adults. I grew up with tech, and that passion is what's driven my 14 years as a tech writer for CNET. But in recent years, things have changed, and technology has gone from being a point of genuine excitement in my life to a cause of real frustration that's made me less excited when new innovations come along. So I'm left wondering: Has technology changed or have I? It's not that I don't like tech anymore. I'm pretty su ... Read full article.