Quote Originally Posted by boingy View Post
Automated services are an absolute pain. As with any new ideas every aspect of everyday life get flooded with them. I spent a lot of last week making clear to various companies how far backwards we have gone. I always start with “Is this conversation being recorded?” “Good” I then proceeded to tell this company that there are many mental health sufferers who after taking half an hour to talk to a human will now be much worse. In contrast in the 1960’s my mother was a switchboard operator for Good years Wolverhampton (one of 50 operators) she could memorize hundreds of phone numbers and could get someone to the correct human in seconds! We all benefit from useful inventions but when you need to talk to a REAL person there is no substitute.
Totally agree! Don't get me wrong, a lot of this recent tech. has its place and (when it works well or is well designed &#128513 can be very useful . To be able to face time loved ones you cannot get to see physically for example. I just think we are now over reliant on it and this causes its own problems.We have already seen a generation glued to their mobile phones and raised on social media who too often avoid conversation with others and this is leading to a lack of inter-personal and communication skills. Companies continue to use zoom meetings rather than physical ones post -pandemic which may be fine for most but a poor substitute for others.

I take Tomkya's point but I think a lot of companies deploy new tech. simply to save money rather than be of any true benefit to their customers and things like self scan checkouts or automated call centres only lower the number of job vacancies. I do understand that all businesses need to invest in technology in order to remain competitive and that this has always meant that machinery replaced manual jobs but I don't think the full ramifications of this are always understood.