We are a curious bunch.

Over the past few years I’ve written about supposed tech innovations that range from the solution-in-search-of-a-problem kind to the head-scratchingly useless. But here’s one that makes me go full-on scooby-doo head-tilt: A phone app that delays your ability to view photos that you just took. Apparently, people are longing for the good old days when you dropped your film off at the drug store and picked up the pictures a few days later only to see that your thumb has obscured everything. Even the 24 hours it took to get your photos from the yellow-roofed Fotomat is too soon..

In an advice column in the June 16, 2021 edition of Wired Magazine, Meghan O’Geiblyn answers a reader’s question, “Why Do I Like Waiting for My Smartphone Photos to 'Develop'?

Check out the piece here: https://www.wired.com/story/why-do-i-like-waiting-smartphone-photos-develop/. Meghan’s somewhat circuitous answer speculates that, maybe, we like enforced idleness. We like the fact that we have to wait and can’t do a darn thing about it. So we might as well contemplate the mysteries of the universe.

But why would we do that? Why would we want to wait when the whole purpose of digital pictures is to see them instantly? So we can know if we got the shot we wanted. The old adage “Film is cheap so shoot a lot of pictures just in case” is even truer in the digital age. Shoot a ton of pictures, see if you got the one you need and delete the rest.

Should a Keurig delay it’s caffeinated goodness until enough time to brew 10 cups has gone by just so you can pretend to be brewing the old fashioned way? Should we pay for fast Amazon shipping that purposely sends your package to sit in a warehouse in Fargo for five days….and still be grateful? It’s a puzzlement.

Again, I’m flying my curmudgeon flag……but I just don’t get it.