Disk activity indicators, the ramping up of fan speeds, or the flashing of network activity lights used to tell me when my computer was doing something I wanted it to do. When my computer started (or stopped) doing a bunch of things unexpectedly it was an indication of compromise or of an application gone rogue.

These days, any number of people feel entitled to use our computers whenever they like for whatever they like. The company who makes your mouse driver might want to phone home, then silently download and install a bunch of software you never asked for. The maker of your OS sends themselves a steady stream of data about what you've been doing on your computer: which files you've had open recently, what software you have installed, etc. With countless people using our devices for their own benefit on their own schedules it's nowhere near as useful to know when your computer is doing "something" because it's always doing something.

Personally, I've always preferred the soft whir of fans and the clicks of old hard drives. For a time they were a wonderful source of white noise for sleeping and I would sometimes find myself waking up if a computer I'd tasked with something overnight suddenly fell silent because it encountered a problem. I'd get up, fix the issue, and go back to sleep comforted by the sounds of my computer working away for me once more. Today our machines can be always silent while never being still, and they can spend at least as much time working for others as they do for us. Indications of activity can still be useful to me at times, but they're never comforting the way they used to be.