Can you imagine how our lives would be like if Edison hadn't invented the lightbulb or if Guttenberg hadn't invented printing? While many of the world's greatest inventions have helped shape the world for good, other human creations should better be left forgotten.
Here's a list of inventions whose inventors immediately regretted creating, either because of how dangerous or how annoying they proved to be. Don't miss it!
Emoticons
Popularly known as emojis, emoticons were created as a way of expressing an emotion by means of a digital text or message. Seems like a pretty witty idea, right?
However, creator Scott Fahlman has claimed that he regrets having come up with this idea. According to Fahlman, people — especially teenagers — have overexploited the use of emoticons, hence contributing to the downfall of the written language.
Mother's Day
Did you know that Mother's Day was held for the first time in the U.S. in 1908? A woman named Anna Javris came up with the idea after buying 500 white carnations in the memory of her late mother.
Little did she imagine that the celebration would be declared a national holiday by the American Congress 6 years later. Jarvis didn't approve of this, as she felt the celebration ended up becoming way too commercial.
Shopping Mall
When Victor Gruen conceived the idea of shopping malls, he probably didn't imagine to what extent it would revolutionize popular culture worldwide.
The man imagined shopping malls as a place of culture and entertainment, but little did he expect them to become powerful commercial centers capable of putting smaller shops out of business.
Labradoodles
Can you think of anything more adorable than a poodle or a labrador? Yeah, a labradoodle! A man named Wally Conron was the first to ever cross these two dog breeds in the '80s, but it wasn't long before he regretted it.
I know what you're thinking: why would anyone regret creating such an unbelievably cute pooch? Well, Conron believes that this new crossbreed led to the creation of hundreds of puppy mills and unsafe breeders who care little about the dogs' welfare.
Comic Sans
When Vincent Connare came up with Comic Sans, he intended it to become another possible alternative for Times New Roman in speech bubbles aimed at kids.
However, as time went by, Comic Sans became the most overused font throughout the world. As Connare once confessed to The Wall Street Journal, he regrets having created it.
The Raleigh Chopper
Back in the 70s, a new type of bicycle dubbed as the Raleigh Chopper was released to the market and suddenly everyone dreamed of owning one. In 2004, this trend made a surprising comeback, but why?
Actually, it's hard to say. Sure, they look cool and vintage, but the truth is that they're super slow, way too heavy, and quite difficult to maneuver. I'd say we'd be better off without them.
Cubicles
One century ago, most office buildings were made up of extremely tiny personal offices, quite unsuitable for people suffering from claustrophobia. However, this changed for good once Bob Probst came up with the concept of cubicles.
Not only did cubicles help optimize space, but it also helped workers feel less trapped in their working environment. However, Probst later disapproved of his own invention, claiming that "The cubiclizing of people in modern corporations is monolithic insanity". He does have a point.
Pepper Spray
Back in the 80s, Kamran Loghman helped the FBI create one of the most effective self-defense weapons out there: the pepper spray. However, he's not exactly proud of it.
Ever since it was introduced to the market, there have been thousands of reported cases of it being misused both by civilians and police officers. "I have never seen such an inappropriate and improper use of chemical agent", Loghman told The New York Times.
Anti-Virus
The name John McAfee probably rings a bell, even if you don't have a clue of who he is. He happens to be the man who created McAfee Anti-Virus, but guess what?
While it's safe to say that the pros of his invention outweigh the cons, he hates it. In fact, he even suggested people to uninstall the program from their computers, given that its software has become one of the main targets for hackers.
K-Cups
If we had to name a single invention that revolutionized the coffee industry, we would probably have to say k-cups. Do all of you know what they're for?
Created by John Sylvan, these tiny instant coffee pouches have made coffee brewing much simpler and quicker. However, they have a detrimental effect on the environment given their single-use plastic design.
Electrical Monitors
When Bob and Kirkland Gable came up with electrical monitors, they meant it as a way of bringing communities closer together through accountability.
However, they were deeply disappointed once they started being used as the most common method of controlling prisoners. That's definitely not what they had in mind.
Planes
The Wright Brothers have received most of the credit for the invention of the air plane, and with good reason. In 1903, the pair went down in history after Wilbur Wright piloted the record flight that lasted 59 seconds.
However, while Orville Wright hoped that his aeroplane would help put an end to wars, he lamented the fact that his invention was later used to bomb entire cities.
Flappy Bird
In 2014, most of the world became addicted to Flappy Bird at the blink of an eye. It became the most downloaded game on the iTunes App Store and it earned a whopping $50,000 per day in advertisements alone.
However, hundreds of specialists all over the world claimed that the game triggered addiction amongst youngsters, so creator Dong Nguyen was left with no choice but to pull the game from the store.
Blink Tag
For those of you who are wondering what a blink tag is, we've got your back: basically, it's a piece of HTML code made up of text flash. But what's its purpose and what's so bad about it?
Lou Montulli created the blink tag while drunk with the mere aim of spicing up a webpage. However, its effects began triggering cases of epilepsy. I bet he never imagined that one backfiring.
Mark Zuckerberg is one of the wealthiest men on earth, and it's all thanks to his social media platform, Facebook. While he certainly doesn't regret having come up with Facebook, one of the platform's earliest proponents, Sean Parker, feels differently.
Parker believes that people have grown too dependent on the amount of likes that their pictures and posts receive and it has led its users to be under the constant pursuit of validation.
Agent Orange
When Arthur Galston created Agent Orange, he meant it to be used as a herbicide to accelerate the process of germination of soybean seeds. However, most of you probably know what it ended up being used for.
During the Vietnam War, the US Army used Agent Orange as a chemical weapon that took the lives of thousands of civilians and devastated thousands of acres of jungle.
World Wide Web
There is no doubt of the fact that The World Wide Web has considerably improved our quality of life and it has also paved the way to the democratization of the access to information.
Nevertheless, there's one aspect of the World Wide Web that system creator Tim Berners-Lee deeply regrets, and it's the double slash after the letters "https". He later admitted that the double slash wasn't necessary at all as it only makes typing the websites a whole lot harder.
Atomic Bomb
Even though J.Robert Oppenheimer is generally acknowledged as the man who came up with the atomic bomb, this lethal weapon of mass destruction wouldn't have been possible had it not been for the work of the world-famous physicist Albert Einstein.
Nevertheless, Einstein has always regretted the fact that his work contributed to the creation of this weapon. Let's be fair, though; we can't blame it on him.
Pop-Up Ads
Out of all the items on this list, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that pop-up ads is the most irritating of all (though clearly not the most dangerous). How is it possible that we can no longer read the news without being redirected to all sorts of ads all the time?
When Ethan Zuckerman came up with the idea, he actually meant to develop a means of advertising without the need of placing an ad on a webpage. However, his invention became everyone's most dreaded nightmare, especially ever since virus-laden ads started appearing everywhere.
Dynamite
Alfred Nobel may well be the most famous scientist in history, mainly because the Nobel Prize was named after him. As most of you already know, he's mostly known for having created dynamite. But for what purpose?
Dynamite was originally intended to be used in the mining industry as a way of obtaining a greater amount of minerals with less time, money, and effort, though it was eventually converted into a weapon of mass destruction.