After I wrote last Thursday’s post about being thankful for all the fun little conveniences we have nowadays, such as an online pizza delivery tracker, I thought about it a little more and realized such things also make workers more stressed. They are not totally sunshine and rainbows.

Back in the day, working in a pizza store was pretty simple. Store workers took orders over the phone, assembled and baked the pizzas, and either sent them out with delivery drivers or took payment directly from customers for carryout orders. Now, the phone still rings, but orders also come in by way of the computer, and workers have to scurry over to update the tracker program every time an order’s status changes. And, of course, it’s always a bad day for the workers if (when) the software gets glitchy.

Now, multiply that by all the computer-related tasks added to the lengthy to-do lists for just about every job in today’s world, and it explains a big chunk of those “too much going on” feelings.

That’s not to say we would be better off if we could wave a magic wand and go back to 1980, or any other simpler time in history. Our apps and other modern conveniences really do make our days more cheerful and interesting—as long as it’s someone else doing the work to make sure they’re functioning properly. Even if it’s our work, using computers doesn’t just pile on extra tasks, but also makes many things easier than if they had to be done the old-fashioned way. So, it’s a mixed bag; we have more to keep track of, but also more software to help with it. I am hopeful the balance will tip more in our favor as time goes on.