One of my contentions is that new technology usually (almost always actually) demands what Ursula Hews calls "consumption work". You buy some kit, and then get bogged down servicing it (working out how it works, filling it with content, transferring old content, making it talk to other bits of kit, backing it up etc...... I'll post some more on this shortly.
A friend of mine recently commented to me that I was overly pessimistic, and that eventually technology found solutions for the problems that it creates. Well my scepticism was dumbfounded by an experience I had this week. I replaced my four and half year old beaten up Apple G4 laptop with a brand new iBookG4. I'd been putting it off because I didn't want to go through the trial of transferring settings, music, work files, personal data etc...
So I switch on the new computer. And immediately it asks me - do I have another Apple which I've been using, and do I want to transfer everything across. I said yes, not believing it would be so easy. It told me to connect by firewire, I did. It told me it would take 18 minutes. It did. And everything came across - all my stuff, but on a new faster (and cleaner) machine. After years of wandering in the deserts of tech frustration it was like an oasis of easiness and calm.
Hats off - not for the first time - to Apple. More like this please, and we get time back from technology, and move away from distraction.