141 years ago Thomas Edison stood tall, a bright shining light in the palm of his hand,

this invention known as the lightbulb. 144 years ago Alexander Graham Bell changed the

course of communication forever with the invention of the telephone​. 204 years ago the first

camera was invented, forever changing how we documented life here on this planet. It’s

technological advancements like these that have helped our society grow to where it is today. In

the past twenty years or so, it seems as though it has skyrocketed and brought us into a world

surrounded by digital machinery. However, some advancements have had negative impacts,

whether quite obvious or slightly subtle. One invention that I have found we would be better off

without is the Roomba. The Roomba is a small circular vacuum cleaner that claims to do a full

hands off clean, but this isn’t so much the case. Roombas have a large lack of efficiency for

their expensive pricing, promote laziness with the hands off cleaning, and even tend to create

emotional issues, as there have been one to many persons in my life who have found

themselves experiencing attachment issues with their Roombas.

There are always chores in one’s house that will force them to be active such as mowing

the lawn or vacuuming. Vacuuming is a simple task, however, people are now choosing to opt

out of doing it themselves. The Roombas promotes laziness by giving humans the option to lay

on the couch while it does the work for them. Some may argue that it is a waste of time to

vacuum when they could have a vacuum that works on its own, however, if one were to ever lay

eyes on a Roombas in action, they would notice it does less than an efficient job. It goes in

random directions and all around without a known pattern which causes many spots to be left

untouched. This would be bad regardless, but the expensive cost of production and customer

purchase deepens the enormity of Roombas. By simply looking at it, one would be able to tell

it’s expensive to make. The cost of an onbrand Roomba is upwards of eight hundred dollars, all

for a mediocre vacuum clean.

 Roombas also cause emotional issues, which may seem rather humorous, however I

have met multiple people that have claimed to have attachment to their Roomba.​ For instance,

a close friend of mine paid more money to fix the Roomba than it would’ve been to buy a

completely new one, all for the purpose of keeping the same one because she was too attached

to it. That also ties back into how expensive it is for the working class. It seems silly, how could

someone be attached to their vacuum cleaner? Well, it’s because it moves on it’s own which

imitates life which then leads to the need to care for it. A normal vacuum cleaner would not have

this effect, especially in comparison to the Roomba.

When shopping for vacuum cleaners, it seems crazy for someone to pick the non

efficient and more expensive version over the well working, appropriately priced version, but it

seems to happen often​. That is all thanks to misleading advertisements and false claims that

make the Roomba seem like a gift sent from heaven, when in reality it is far from that. In short,

the world would be better off without the Roomba.