The app-ocalypse: Please, I beg, don’t make me download one more app

Long, long ago (2009), in a far-off place (my youth), the words “there’s an app for that” were the kind to evoke intrigue, novelty, maybe even excitement. It was a world where, previously, the internet was something you opened up on your computer, firing up Firefox and expanding your bookmarks for your daily dose of friends’ lives on Facebook, celebrity gossip on Oh No They Didn’t, and cute cat memes on I Can Haz Cheezburger. And then – and then – you closed it and walked away and just, like, existed in the world. Disconnected.

You hung a calendar on your wall to keep track of important dates. You had a notepad on your desk to add and cross off items on your to-do list. When you went to a restaurant, you gave your order to a staff member after perusing a paper menu. You printed off directions before you travelled somewhere new. On a night out, you took 126 photos on a digital camera, which you then diligently hooked up to your computer to upload every single photo, unfiltered, to your MySpace. You read physical books or, if you were lucky, an e-reader. You listened to music on an MP3 player loaded with 30 songs you had to manually change whenever you wanted a new playlist. You were happy.

These days, if I hear the words “there’s an app for that” – as I so often do – I can’t help but shudder.Credit: Getty Images

But on the horizon, there were these mysterious things that your richer friends might already have access to – smartphones. And they had apps for everything. Well, not everything. But things that felt important. Like calculators and music, and that one visual that made it look like you were drinking beer when you tilted it to your mouth. They were practically magic. And then the magic turned darker than whatever was in the One Ring that made Gollum look like that.

These days, if I hear the words “there’s an app for that” – as I so often do – I can’t help but shudder. Since that early, heady time when iPhones felt like a rare and precious object, we have not only achieved smartphone ubiquity but also full app overload. There is now quite literally an app for everything, and it is simply too many apps.

I log appointments on a calendar app. I make notes on a notes app. I have two apps for email, three for maps, four separate apps on which I Iisten to music, podcasts and audiobooks, and nine on which I pay subscriptions to gain access to the small number of TV shows and movies on each that I want to/have time to watch. I have more than a dozen social media apps, and offshoots of those apps (remember when messenger was within Facebook and not a whole separate thing?). I have multiple apps for various cinemas, grocery stores, meal delivery services, rideshares/taxis, real estate companies, photos and videos, individual stores I wanted one single dress from in 2023, even household appliances – you name it, I have an app for it.

And I know what you’re thinking. Just don’t download the apps, right? Well, I try. Sometimes, I really try. I’ve mostly opted out of tracking apps these days, which I previously used excessively when I had a newborn to remember ever poo, feed, and slight mood change my tiny little terror – I mean angel – had. I’ve completely avoided any AI app because, well, that’s a whole other subject of dark magic and doom. Then there was the time I refused to download an authenticator app — an app that exists purely to allow you to login to other apps — because I thought I could just get all my two-factor authentication codes SMSed to me to pile up in my unread notifications for eternity like a normal person. And then Elon Musk took over Twitter, and arbitrarily decided you had to use an authenticator app unless you paid him, and I got logged out – and locked out – of my account for 16 months.

This is all without mentioning the apps you literally need to function on a daily basis. And I’m not even talking about the ones that are convenient but replaceable, like the clock app or the weather app. I mean, like, the two separate apps I have to communicate with my kid’s daycare. Or the three separate apps I use to manage my money. And, naturally, the three to five games I’m addicted to at any given time.

If you want to make a doctor’s appointment, there’s an app. If you want to access a government service, there’s an app. If you want to pay for parking, there’s an app. If you want to order off a damn menu, there’s not only a QR code but also — you guessed it — an app! I have three different apps for separate ultrasound services I used across my two pregnancies (long gone are the days you got printed out photos of your fetus — now you download them from an app!).

It’s an app-ocalypse.

I am so overwhelmed by apps I’ve toyed with the idea of a “dumbphone” — an old-school device that functions as a phone and maybe a clock, calculator, and camera, if you want to get real fancy. But then I circle back to all those “necessary” apps and functioning in modern life just feels too hard without them. So I stick with my smartphone and cycle through the same apps over and over again, my own Sisyphean boulder I will never escape. (I know, I know — there’s an app for that.)

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