In my opinion, whether they are "necessary" is irrelevant (by objective measures, most things aren't) and simplicity is not a meaningful goal in itself.
As a species, we're drastically better off today than we have ever been. That includes calorie counts globally. The human population of earth has far more food than it needs. There are radically fewer famines today, not more.
The suffering that is happening in Venezuela wasn't caused by 'complications of modern life,' much less apps.
I completely disagree with the base premise, and do not believe our lives are more complex. I believe our lives are drastically simplified versus the concerns of just a few hundred years ago: near total lack of any rights, serious fear of starvation or exposure, constant war, a life filled with non-stop violence and death, almost total poverty, extreme majority illiteracy, constant risk of premature death by unknown illnesses, extraordinarily horrible hygiene and living standards, no stable / functional / trustworthy systems of savings or retirement (meaning a constant fear of not making it through the next year), and on it goes.
We do however face grave environmental issues so it's not all a feel-good story.