Karaoke machine voted worst gadget ever invented
Technology can improve our lives in so many ways that it’s sometimes easy to forget the ways in which it’s made life worse. Not every invention can be world-changing like the PC, the Internet, the television, telephone etc. In fact, there are many useless or annoying gadgets out there, the worst of which may well be the karaoke machine. At least if the results of a new survey are to be believed.
According to The Telegraph newspaper, a new poll carried out on behalf of the British government has also turned up the top ten most annoying gadgets ever invented. 2,500 adults were questioned about the inventions they loved and the inventions they hated. The top ten is a strange mix of the useless and the undeniably essential.
Top Ten Most Hated Inventions
1. Karaoke machine – 22 percent
2. 24hr sports channel – 17 percent
3. Video games consoles – 12 percent
4. Mobile phones – 11 percent
5. Alarm clocks – 7 percent
6. Hair straighteners – 5 percent
7. The Internet – 4 percent
8. Personal electronic organizers – 2 percent
9. MP3 players – 2 percent
10. Remote controls – 1 percent
The karaoke machine surely deserves its place at the top of the list. Here is a machine that gives pleasure to just those people who get laughed out of The X Factor or American Idol auditions. The rest of us have to put up with people who can’t actually sing try to in an attempt to gain compliments and some degree of drunken fun. No thanks.
Kane Kramer, a director of the British Inventors Society, said:
Seeing the karaoke machine at the top of that list made me smile.
When people are singing karaoke they are enjoying themselves, but as a member of the audience you are just watching somebody who can’t perform – and isn’t particularly pleasant to listen to – for as long as you can bear it.
It is anti-social. You might have 10 people who want to sing some karaoke, which means 150 people have to suffer it.
24hr sports channels are another invention meriting their position on the list although that’s only because I’m not very keen on sports. But the rest of the list is quite frankly bizarre. With the exception of hair straighteners (I’m going bald) and personal electronic organizers (I don’t have much of a life to organize), I wouldn’t want to be without the other inventions for all the tea in China.
Video games consoles are surely the greatest invention known to man? Just have a read of some of the comments on Gamer.Blorge and tell me that consoles haven’t enriched all our lives. Okay, bad example but I still fail to see what’s so awful about games consoles.
Mobile phones? Everyone has one so they can’t be that bad. Alarm clocks? We’d all be fired from our jobs if they’d never been invented. The Internet? Is bad how? The fact it’s even on the list has turned me into a mono-syllabic idiot. Mp3 players? Surely better than carrying a box of records around. And remote controls? Well of course, I loved having to get up from my chair every time I wanted to change channel on the TV when I was a kid.
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