Despite the slight twinge of residual, reflexive Old Left disdain I might feel toward a survey of “The Affluents” (a piece of terminology that does the nice trick of reminding me simultaneously of The Incredible and effluents), there’s some interesting if relatively unsurprising material in this report about how access to technology doesn’t make people happier:

As people of means acquire more technological devices to simplify their lives, their lives have actually become more complicated….

But technology, seemingly like everything else from the last decade, is viewed by the Affluents as something of a mixed blessing. When we asked how their lives had changed over the past decade, “infused with technology” was the most widely cited answer. But equally telling are the phrases coming next on the list — “more complicated,” “more stressful” and “focused on finding ways to do more with less.” In contrast, fewer than half said their lives had become “more fun” or “easier.”

At least in the short-term, expect both trends to continue — enthusiastic adoption of new technology, and the increasing complication of everyday life. A host of new tablets, e-readers and other platforms are poised for introduction, surely bringing lower prices, new capabilities, and increasingly complicated purchase decisions. For most, a tablet or e-reader doesn’t replace an existing device, it becomes a supplement — another device to carry, manage, troubleshoot and potentially pay monthly charges for. And it’s another device to be accounted for in the complex calculus of choosing a media platform for a particular task or occasion (e.g., a smartphone for calls and texting, a tablet for app usage, a print magazine to read on the train, a laptop for document creation and internet use).

Or, as Gawker puts it,

The more money you get, the more gadgets you get, and the more harried you feel, and the more stressed you get, and the less happy you are…. More gadgets! More technology! More demands! Less free time! All of the hours of the day that you don’t spend earning your $100K+ are consumed by a tidal wave of information and its various shiny delivery mechanisms! No peace! No rest! No time for contemplation! Plug in and never escape! Your means have trapped you in their seductive embrace! It’s the curse of the Affluent in our modern age!

I’m not sure how much of that complexity is simply irreducible, and how much of it can be reduced through better design. On one hand, having spent the evening setting up a wireless printer– an experience that required me setting up a new wireless network in the house, installing software on my own computer twice, then changing configuration settings and setting up new software on each of the four computers in the house– I’m certain that some of the complexity can be reduced, but I think what The Affluents are pointing to is a fundamental bedrock of complexity that is a product of just being alive.

Perhaps at some point more people will look upon connectivity the way Seneca encouraged stoics to look at all indulgences: as something that the wise person would appreciate but not treat as a source of happiness. As he wrote,

Even Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure, used to observe stated intervals, during which he satisfies his hunger in niggardly fashion; he wished to see whether he thereby feel short of full and complete happiness, and, if so, by what amount he feel short, and whether this amount was worth purchasing at the price of great effort… For though water, barley-meal, and crusts of barley-bread, are not a cheerful diet, yet is is the highest kind of pleasure to be able to derive pleasure from this sort of food, and to have reduced one’s needs to that modicum which no unfairness of Fortune can snatch away.

Or at the very least we’ll recognize that technology doesn’t make your life simpler through some magical combination of increased speed and automation. Actually simplifying your life— consciously choosing to have less, to be more thoughtful about it, and to live more mindfully– makes your life simpler.