The 11 Most Annoying Everyday Devices of Modern Civilization
Sep 10, 2009 - By Chris Weiss
Here at GadgetCrave, we spend a lot of time featuring cool new gadgets designed to make your life a little more convenient and entertaining. Not all gadgets provide an improvement, however. Many gadgets serve to anger and annoy their users and others around them more than they actually provide any positive function. Here’s a list of gadgets and devices that have all undoubtedly found themselves at the wrong end of a mallet or strip of asphalt countless times.
Number One: The Cell Phone
No, we’re not talking about the new HTC Mega you’ve been eyeing for your cell phone collection. In fact, your cell phone isn’t the problem at all. It’s the other guy’s–every other guy’s. Have you ever overheard someone yammering on in his outside voice about something so pressing that it actually had to be addressed that moment right in the middle of Costco? Maybe if said caller is hovering over your muted, half-lifeless body calling for help, the public phone call is acceptable. Otherwise, it’s just irritating. Extra douche points to anyone that walks around screaming into a Bluetooth headset for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Number Two: The Automatic Hand Dryer
Perhaps we’ve gotten a little spoiled and jaded, but shouldn’t a mechanical invention that replaces something as simple as a paper towel actually present an improvement? When was the last time you thought: “Great! No paper towels–just that big, sexy hand dryer! Gimme some!” Probably never, because the damn thing doesn’t work. Sure, if you want to stand there rubbing your hands vigorously and hitting the button three or four times, you might actually get 3/4 of the way to dry. Otherwise, you’re coming out of that bathroom looking like you peed all over yourself because the only way your hands are getting dry is if you rub them right on your pants. The paper towel is forever 1,000 times better than the hand dryer, unsanitary properties and all.
Number Three: The Portable Speaker System
Like the cell phone, this one is entirely dependent upon the circumstances surrounding its usage. Unfortunately, those circumstances too often involve public displays of horrible music that no one else but the dock/boombox owner wants to listen to. Whether it’s in a local park, beach or seemingly-empty parking lot, there’s a reason that MP3 players come with earbuds not speakers.
Number Four: The Self-Flush Toilet
In theory, the self-flush toilet is a great idea. In fact, its close cousin the self-flush urinal works pretty well–no more having to worry about the last guy’s spray doing a reverse pike onto your chinos. The self-flush toilet could be equally effective, if it weren’t for its one regrettable quality of trigger-happiness. Just a small readjust on the seat and the roaring flush is soon to follow. The combination of powerful, public-toilet flush and unprotected, dangling cheeks has a way of sending droplets of filthy public toilet water straight up your cavity. And one drop of water from your local public stall is enough to ruin any device and give it a place on any worst-of list.
Number Five: The Fax Machine
Whether it’s the daily paper jam, the unwanted 78-page fax that ties up your machine for half an hour while wasting all your remaining paper, or the horrible screech on the other end of a fax-based wrong-number, faxes have the ability to irritate the average working man and woman like no other workplace device. Hopefully, Internet-based scanning and faxing will soon render the fax machine obsolete.
Number Six: The Aftermarket Car Audio System
It’s understandable when a teenager puts a big, loud system in his first car to show off to new and old friends. Still annoying, but understandable. What is completely unfathomable is when a 28-year-old still hanging onto that last frayed thread of youth rolls around the neighborhood pumping out enough bass to rattle the pictures off your walls. What the hell is wrong with that guy? If you’re over 25 and still driving around in a circa 1997 Integra stacked with 18-inch Kickers under the hatch, it’s really time to sit down and reassess your life. While you’re doing that, the rest of the neighborhood will be out ripping that stupid, monstrous system out. Jackass.
Number Seven: The Alarm Clock
Most of these other entries are ones that you can get away from. You may not hear a peep from them for weeks, even months. Unless you have the rare, uncanny ability to awaken at just the right time unassisted, or are permanently unemployed, the alarm clock is one annoyance that is there to greet you every single day. No matter how many fun new twists on the alarm clock that come to market (i.e. iPod dock, Internet radio, etc.), the device was just designed to suck. Any piece of equipment that rudely crashes your long-awaited horizontal tangle with a bevy of female tennis players solely to drag you kicking and screaming into the harsh reality of finance reports and 6 a.m. meetings is annoyance incarnated.
Number Eight: The Camera Flash
The only thing more annoying than the flash is that cheeseball photographer that makes a series of asenine jokes even your 5-year-old rolls his eyes at. And even then, the camera flash is his encore performance. The flash is by far the worst part about printing your mug on paper. And despite all the advances that we’ve seen in modern digital cameras, we still haven’t seen a more soothing replacement to that surprisingly-blinding eyesore. Perhaps the Dark Flash will finally put this one to rest.
Number Nine: The Car Alarm
At this point, everyone is so numb to the sound of a car alarms that they really serve no purpose at all. Honestly, the last time a car alarm went off, did you dutifully run outside to see if you could ID the perp or did you sit still, silently vowing to destroy the car owner’s life one small piece at a time? Any kind of professional car thief–you know, the guys that inspire one to get an alarm system to begin with–should be savvy enough to disable the alarm and make off with the car–it’s what they do. So all the alarm really does is destroy the nerves of every innocent bystander unfortunate enough to be nearby.
Number Ten: The Automated Phone System
If there was one invention on this list that could inspire true, unabated violence, it’d have to be the automated phone system. There’s a good chance that if you’re calling up your local utility provider, you’re already a bit hot under the collar. What no one really needs at that point is to have the experience of yelling into a phone trying desperately to communicate the most simple word to a machine. I never thought that I’d miss the apathetic headset jockey like a long-lost lover, but the automated phone system has inspired just that level of nostalgic yearning.
Number 11: ???
Alright, as with any list, some readers are just waiting to get to the comments section to lambast us for missing something that you were waiting for. There’s always something missing from any Top 10 list, which is why we’ve made this a Top 11—we’ve saved the last slot for you. Go ahead, fire off some devices/technologies/inventions that annoy the crap out of you every day and show us something we may have missed.
Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:20PM
#11 – Gadget Websites
Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:22PM
So exciting and so true. I find the automated phone system most annoying though.
Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:29PM
#11: Top 11 lists that only have 10 entries. Oh, that isn't a gadget.
Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:40PM
My 11th is the bluetooth headset. You never know when the're talking to you!!
Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:49PM
I disagree with a few of your points.
- camping or spending a day at the cottage without a Portable Speaker System.
- most auto insurance providers give a discount when vehicle is equipped with an alarm.
- as for car stereo, there is nothing wrong with an upgrade. some stock systems are not good enough.
Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:50PM
Remote controls – so many brands, layouts. Our parents always need our help getting the DVD player to work. Universal remotes are great, but only as long as the technology they connect too don't outdate them.
Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:55PM
The ratio of customers to support people must be 1000 to 1. Automated phone systems are the only thing keeping the whole game from collapsing entirely.
Friday, September 11, 2009 12:03AM
The iPhone, I've never seen so many people ask to have thier life controled. Also it has shitty coverage.
Friday, September 11, 2009 12:16AM
Oh wow, right when you thought it couldnt get no better!
RT
http://www.privacy-resources.tk
Friday, September 11, 2009 12:29AM
Automated phone systems are bad enough, but what REALLY gets me is the ones that want you to speak your responses… Number one, I have YET to be heard correctly by any voice recognition phone system, and two, when I'm calling my bank to check a balance or something, I'm not too keen on yelling out my account number and the last four of my SSN over and over again while in a public place… And there's been too many times where the voice-rec system picks up ambient noise like a radio or a cough and tries to interpret it as speech… lame!
At #11, I would put cable-boxes… they're slow, always have a poorly designed interface, and come with crappy remotes.
Thursday, September 10, 2009 7:30PM
Text messaging is annoying, when on a cell phone, and even when on a computer. Personality, mood, etc, is all ruined, even if you use stupid emoticons. The worst are folks who text message in public on their cells. They are mostly driving drunk, and are terrible dates. Twitter is a terrible symptom of this.
Friday, September 11, 2009 12:33AM
i thought bluetooth would be there
Friday, September 11, 2009 12:35AM
#2, the hand dryer, I completely agree with until I experience the Dyson airblade. If you're brave enough to stick your hands in, you'll experience the first hand dryer that actually works, IMO.
Wow that sounds like a spam comment, but here's the link to what I'm talking about:
http://www.dysonairblade.com/homepage.asp
Friday, September 11, 2009 12:37AM
You should replace the automatic hand dryer with the automatic towel dispenser. They are 100x more frustrating then any dryer ever has been.
Friday, September 11, 2009 1:10AM
Okay, can people read? They mentioned bluetooth headsets as an example of douchebaggery in "The Cell Phone."
Also, hand dryers ARE more "eco-friendly" if that helps. They're just a pain in the ass to work with as they take forever to dry your hands- at least the older and more common versions are.
Friday, September 11, 2009 1:25AM
Netbooks.
Why are people embracing yester-tech? I want to move forward, not backward in a smaller form factor.
Friday, September 11, 2009 1:51AM
Harley Davidson motorcycles tricked out to sound like a Boeing taking off. Wankers.
Friday, September 11, 2009 1:59AM
To whoever suggested that the forced-air hand dryers are so eco-friendly, what about all the power they suck down?
I'd think those old big-loop-of-cloth type hand dryers would be the most eco-friendly. Doesn't suck down electricity like the forced-air hand dryers, and doesn't use up paper/trees/whatever like paper towel dispensers. And when the loop gets dirty? Just throw it in the wash with whatever else.
Friday, September 11, 2009 3:27AM
They have some of those installed at Disneyland, most notably in the restrooms on Tom Sawyer Island. They are great. As a tree-hugger who always has considered paper towels wasteful and unnecessary and always wipes hands on pants if paper towels are the only option, I truly hope that the new designs eventually catch on and get messy landfill-clogging paper towels out of public restrooms.
Friday, September 11, 2009 3:45AM
#11 – Text Messaging's 160 character limit
Friday, September 11, 2009 4:00AM
#11: the automobile
Friday, September 11, 2009 4:11AM
more jobs for people
Friday, September 11, 2009 7:14AM
The XBox 360 and it's unescapable RRoD.
Friday, September 11, 2009 3:26AM
When you’re drying your hand with an automatic hand dryer, you end up with more bacteria on your hands then before.
I hate those things and prefer to grab a piece of toilet paper and dry my hands with that.
And
#11 is #1 combined with #3 mobile phones with speakers. I hate those kids playing their music on those crappy things on the streets, on the train…
Friday, September 11, 2009 10:49AM
The Dyson hand dryer is absolutely amazing. Used one for the first time at JFK in a bathroom near the Icelandair terminal. All World Dryers should be replaced with them immediately.
Friday, September 11, 2009 1:25PM
I'm a network engineer, and I have to say IVR system are definitely the worst thing ever. That's what we in the industry refer to automated voice phone thingies as. IVR stands for interactive voice response. I only mention this so that next time you have to speak to one your rage will have a name to focus on. The worst is knowing that almost all of them have some sort of backdoor… a key sequence, a little use option, or a "safeword" of sorts that will get you to a person. Not knowing what this is, but knowing it's out there, is infuriating. Although saying things like "I wish you were a person so I could light you on fire" feel awfully good sometimes, and it's not like you can get in trouble for threatening its life.
Friday, September 11, 2009 2:40PM
I've been converted by a new hot air hand dryer. I canned at a motorway service area and they had Dyson hand dryers. What a revelation. You place your hands into the gap, wait 20 seconds and – ta da!! they're dry. No wringing of the hands or anything – wonderful!
Friday, September 11, 2009 4:45PM
My most hated device? – The Woofer-Amplified vehicle system. You can feel the vibrations from blocks away. It's time to arm ourselves with road spikes!
Friday, September 11, 2009 4:59PM
#11: Top-10 lists about crap that we already know annoys the hell out of us.
Saturday, September 12, 2009 7:07AM
Auto on-off bathroom sinks.
I have large hands, and for some reason those things will never work for me. I stand there for minutes trying to get these fucking devices to function, while shorter people walk up next to me, wash their hands, and leave.
I would gladly shoot the bitch who approved implementing these fucking things without testing them first. But not before I beat them with a ball-peen hammer and cut open their guts with the back of a regular hammer.
Voice recognition system – why the fuck would anyone replace something that works (touch tone response) with something that doesn’t?
Microsoft Windows – OMFG! This thing will slow down and produce error messages for no reason. Doing something simple (like changing a setting or stopping a service) and then undoing it will cause irreparable damage. Things that would ideally be simple text files, such as shortcuts and the registry, are instead poorly documented binary blobs. Plenty of Windows functions simply can not be done from the command line. Only some of the simpler functions (such as turning the stupid thing off) can be done, but only with 3rd party software.
Tiny comment boxes and fixed width web page designs – Seriously, WTF gadgetcrave? There is no reason for the ultra tiny comment box. And the only reason for such a narrow column would be to make a page with little content look like it has enough content to fill a web page, but you have enough content. So why the piss-poor design?
Sunday, September 13, 2009 5:50PM
Automated Phone calls. You know those "If you are (fill in the blank), please press one". Don't waste my time calling me to have me call you back, put a human on the line and you'll get your information faster…
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 9:01PM
The airblade is sooooooooooooo loud though.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 3:31PM
#12 this post
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 9:09AM
11. Women
Friday, September 25, 2009 1:39PM
[...] Annoying Gadgets: 11 Gadgets That Annoy People [...]
Monday, October 26, 2009 6:12AM
If you're sending more than 160 words, wouldn't it be less annoying to just make the 30 second phone call?
#11 – Texts over 160 characters
Friday, December 4, 2009 12:52AM
LG GC900! I smashed mine today, wish I had not lost my temper with the thing though.
Friday, December 4, 2009 12:55AM
Cold calling by a recorded meassage! "Are you aware that you could write off all your cretit cards, if you owo more than…" I normaly hang up at this point.
Friday, July 2, 2010 12:20AM
hello guys
I just want to say hi