Some problems are good to keep and need no solution

The new app I had found to order food at the office had an implication that was immediately understood by my boyfriend. As a rather introverted Brit, it usually takes him a couple of pints and a disagreeable statement to become animated. But my description of the app that allows me to order relatively healthy, inexpensive vegetarian dinners for delivery to the FT's office evoked emphatic arm waving before he had even finished his first beer of the evening.

"Oh no! Ohhh no! No! This is a disaster!" The friend who had invited us over on Friday was dumbfounded, which prompted a more comprehensible explanation. "But the only thing that kept you leaving the office at a decent time was to get dinner!" Some problems, it would seem, are better left unsolved.

Back at work on Monday, over Provencal vegetable stew with creamy stuffed potato halves, I recalled a solution I find just as irritating as my boyfriend finds the food app: WiFi in London Underground stations. Or on aircraft, for that matter. It was only a matter of time before wireless routers were installed in these last bastions of offline contemplation and binge watching of bad movies.

I understand that some people appreciate being connected while underground, instead of basking in the enforced break from life online. But couldn't we at least have had a referendum on it?

There is a certain timelessness to problems being solved to the irritation of one group or another. But given the pace of technological innovation and shrinking start-up costs, it appears there is an escalating torrent of solutions available. And this is true not only for existing problems, but also for ones we did not know we had until some, typically young, company informed us about them. I had no idea that my life was incomplete without a microblogging platform. If Twitter hadn't come along, I would never have to imagine what I would do without it.

It is, perhaps, the apps that provide real-world solutions to existing problems - in just a few clicks - that have the greatest chance of changing our lives. Finding a cleaner by reading reviews on a local online forum, as I did when I moved to a new neighbourhood a few years ago, probably seems quaint to young professionals who rely on the reviews of apps that list cleaners.

Then there's TaskRabbit, a service imported to the UK from the US that allows users to find so-called "Taskers" to do everything from assemble flat-pack furniture to organise a closet. Or, as one suggested task description on the website put it: "There's a restaurant on Charlotte St. that I really want to try, but the line is always very long. Can you go to the restaurant at 5pm on Saturday and save my space in line until 7:30pm?"

With so many apps and services lining up to do almost everything I've ever found irritating, what will happen if I let them do all these things? As solutions are increasingly available off-the-shelf, perhaps what will come to characterise a person is not the way he or she solves a problem but the problems they choose to keep.

I, for one, am perversely proud of my identity as an American expat who still does her own US taxes. Take that, preparation providers! Don't think I won't ruin the next four weekends figuring out the alternative minimum tax calculation with foreign tax credits on earned income, because I so will!

Yet, as I dig into my speedily delivered lentil and feta-stuffed courgettes, I cannot help but wonder if my meal is a pyrrhic victory. It is nice not to feel hungry as I tackle my task list uninterrupted by meetings. However, it is a bit like eating a brownie when one is past the age of efficient metabolism: the pleasurable feeling of satiation passes quickly and guilt lingers.

Eating out of a container is one thing, but it is the cutlery that really does it. Sitting in front of a keyboard at a desk illuminated by fluorescent lights while tearing open a crinkly bag to fish out a plastic fork and knife gives pause for thought about one's life choices. Maybe it would be better to stay hungry a little longer and let my grumbling stomach walk me out of the office. Perhaps upon leaving the building I should delete the app for good measure.

I hope I have food in my fridge. But if I don't, I could always order something online.

[email protected]: @LSPollack

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