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I hesitate to use the word ‘miracles’, but truly we live in an age of convenience. Even people like yours truly who are old enough to remember not having a cellphone or even a television remote — or mail order being a rarely used option where you waited 6-8 weeks for delivery — have now succumbed to the mental state where sometimes having to wait any noticeable length of time between desire and acquisition is anathema. 30 seconds for a website to load feels like an eternity, doesn’t it? And yet a scant 15 years ago I remember being overjoyed to get more than 1KB/sec with my Internet connection. I did my digital surfing with a book in my lap.
Last week I mentioned I’d finally dipped my toes into digital comics services like ComiXology and Marvel Unlimited, and while 99% of the time it has worked better than I could have imagined, there is the occasional frustration of selecting to read a comic and getting stuck watching a loading screen that has no Pavlovian progress bar to stare at. 10 seconds pass… 20… maybe 30? All I know is it feels like forever and I inevitably have backed out to try another comic that’s more cooperative.
Of course that pales in comparison to my occasional Netflix depressions. I get it in my head to watch a particular film, head excitedly to the Stream, and… it ain’t available. Oh sure, we pay extra a month for the DVD option and I could queue it up there, but that means at least one agonizing business day of wait. What am I going to do right now? Is there a more pathetic sight than a 40+ year old man slowly sinking into his couch, frowning as he browses title after title in an ultimately vain attempt to find something which would scratch the itch in his head that a distressing lack of instantly viewable Ant-Man has caused? And it’s not just me… Dawn recently wanted to binge on some Harry Potter movies only to find all our streaming services failing to provide. Such disappoint.
Such are the crazed perspectives of our crazy heads. Movies and comics right at our fingertips, and yet the bummer sets in at just the thought that we might have to use some extra effort and/or wait a little longer before we enjoy them. 15,000 archived Marvel publications spanning half a century waiting for my eyeballs and here I am sighing in anger and stabbing at the READ NOW button because the particular Doctor Strange I wanted to check out is having technical issues.
Now I’m paying for these services, true. This isn’t me haranguing a webcomic author for being a few hours behind with their latest page or giving some micro-business grief for not using ultra-fast shipping options I had no interest in actually giving them money for. But man, even if I’m not jumping on the forums to complain my brain DOES NOT LIKE IT when the free-to-play online game I set aside an evening to enjoy has a temporary server outage. And instead of going and doing something else, the brain’s first instinct is to just sit there stewing and hitting refresh over and over. Recreational targets had been planned. How dare the universe fail to cooperate.
Fifteen years ago — even five years ago — a lot of these services and conveniences didn’t exist, or weren’t widespread enough to begin to take for granted. It occurs to me I should be amazed that technology has even provided me with the capability to be disappointed that, on occasion, I can’t just log in and play a game in real-time with someone on the other side of the Earth.
Perspective on these things is important to maintain.
In the meantime, I’ll probably be mashing that refresh button at least a few more times.