By Harley Terrill
Think about all of the inventions in your house, then think about all of the inventions you use everyday. Do you really think you need all of them?
Why use an egg-beater when you can use a fork? Why use a leaf blower when you can use a broom? Do you really need to save five minutes out of your day? People are paying for things that they don’t need just because they see them as more convenient or easier to use. The people buying these items aren’t just the ones paying for them, the environment is as well. The cost of production for some of these inventions is very high and producing them en masse in factories uses resources and produces emissions that can cause damage to the ozone layer. The economic impact of manufacturing items that we don’t really need, is millions of dollars.
Nobody likes to waste money, but putting that aside, is it so hard to just get out and do ten minutes of sweeping as opposed to five minutes of leaf blowing? A bit of exercise never killed anyone. When you really think about it, some things just seem ridiculous, why would anyone need to go buy an electric bowling ball polisher when all they need is a cloth and some polish?
The biggest one seems to be the new travelators that are going up around shopping centres. I understand the use of such things for disabled and elderly people, but most people out there are able to walk and don’t need a giant expensive invention to help them do it. Things like this make people lazier and we are all using them. People are going to keep going to the easiest option.
I’m not saying that every invention is unnecessary. Of course we need a lot of the things we have. I wouldn’t want to cook my dinner outside on a fire, I prefer the oven. Washing machines and dryers save hours in a day. I’m talking about the things that we could live without and would be much more cost efficient on ourselves and the planet if we cut them back a little.
Automated checkouts are something we could do without. We could give a few more students jobs as cashiers if we didn’t have them. Not to mention they are annoying to use in my opinion. They are another example of items that only save five minutes out of your day. You could spend that time having a conversation with a person instead of getting home to watch television five minutes earlier. Time savers are a good thing, but we don’t need to spend millions of dollars making and installing them to save people a few moments at the shops.
My top ten unnecessary inventions
1. Travelators
2. Electric can opener
3. Electric toothbrush
4. Automated checkout
5. Crocs
6. Fruit slicers
7. Electric blankets
8. E-readers
9. Battery powered bug swatters
10. Blade-less fans
