If you’re tired of being frustrated by less than user-friendly websites, you’re not alone. An increasing number of us are enraged as we wait for hours poised for online responses and viable actions or help, only to find patronizing “customer service” chatbots show up. There are dropped calls, links that don’t work, or hopes for a live agent who knows how to fix the problem or find a supervisor.
I decided to explore this problem while I was losing my mind waiting for someone to help me when my credit card website wouldn’t work as I tried to pay my balance on time. I had just had issues with an airline, a bank, and a donation site. But could I find a phone number or email address to talk to a corporate contact? Instead, I was provided with various help options that had no bearing on my problem.
In addition, Google, Zoom, and Squarespace, all of which I depend on, have changed their websites, instructions, and ability to access a live human being. It’s maddening to follow what they are asking me to do. I’m not a website or computer Luddite but for God’s sake, “if it ain’t broken don’t fix it.”
My research revealed some interesting information. For example, as early as 2017 a survey reported that an increasing number of customers were complaining about the growing problems they were having trying to pay their bills, arrange appointments, understand dysfunctional instructions, or speak to a humana being. In that research survey 74 percent of 1,000 respondents reported experiencing significant problems. And it’s only gotten worse over the last nine years.
The internet wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was based on systems working properly and on having highly trained and friendly human beings available when you needed technical help, information, and ways to address specific problems. Now friendly helpers are a thing of the past. They’ve been taken over by algorithms, financial incentives, AI, annoying options and ChatGPT.
As someone posted on Facebook recently, “By 2026, everything had become an app, a code, a portal. Yet the very people who built this country … now find themselves illiterate in their own homes. If booking a medical appointment or paying a bill requires the help of a child, then the system has failed.”
Here’s another post I saw on social media that resonated. “I don’t want to see technology evolve any more. I’m tired of needing an app. I don’t want to scan a QR code to see a menu. … I miss when self-checkout wasn’t becoming normal. I miss calling a business and speaking to an actual person. And I’m exhausted by everything requiring a password or a verification code.
Some people argue that the growing level of frustration and anger when Internet barriers occur has impacts on our mental health. Many consumers are enraged and overwhelmed when they must fight against customer service hassles, billing mistakes, companies flawed websites, waiting online endlessly for an airline, cable company, or bank. As one advocate noted, “It feels like a war on consumers who feel like they’re being hit by a “tsunami of tricks and traps. It certainly feels like we’ve been jerked around.”
A piece in the Boston Globe recently nailed it when it described the frustration of holding on for an hour or more trying to fix a problem, searching for a document that needs to be uploaded, or begging an AI chatbot to understand what the problem is. “We’ve all been there,” it said.
Digital isolation is bad enough without dysfunctional Internet sites, referrals to apps, and technology failures. It’s exhausting navigating these issues or waiting endlessly for someone to be responsive. It’s elitist in many ways because ordinary people who lack human or financial resources that companies and organizations have must suffer the consequences or beg for help.
As a National Institutes of Health paper on digital isolation points out, “Digital isolation represents a contemporary paradox in which increased connectivity through social media and digital technologies does not necessarily translate into improved psychological well-being.” That’s especially true for people who live alone or lack the necessary computer skills.
Perhaps the Internet could become more user friendly rather than making matters worse, if it prioritized simple web design, easy access to links and available technical assistance. It would also help if corporate America cared more about people over profit. That’s not likely to happen anytime soon. So, we are left with being challenged, frustrated, and sometimes enraged as our angst grows, our blood pressure rises, and we continually apologize for our rants when we can talk to a human being.
Fortunately, the ubiquitous invasions of my cell phone and emails asking for political contributions are finite. I received more than a dozen pleas for money every hour as the midterm races tightened. They resorted to shaming me for not being a good democrat. They asked me for money in the guise of a survey, and they didn’t seem to know that I’d already contributed, often more than once, in which case I fire back that “I have only so much time, patience, and money.”
So, for now the best we can do is to hang in there, vent when we need to, take a walk, and know that we are not alone in trying to cope with technology’s pitfalls, corporate indifference, poor messages, and needing to ask kids to help. At least there’s that.
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Elayne Clift writes and rants from Brattleboro, Vt.
