New advances in tech are marvels that are turning all of us into saps
Fitbit's $299 Sense 2 smartwatch keeps a closer eye on your stress levels. Credit: Handout/Fitbit
It’s been a busy batch of days in techworld, with Fitbit rolling out shiny new wearables and added features and Apple’s annual Cupertino wow-fest Wednesday displaying what its phones and watches can do now.
And each year, as these extraordinary innovations are unleashed, the urge to exclaim “Oh sweet lord, what is even happening to the human race right now?" grows.
Now, I’m not a crazy Luddite who won’t use tech and waxes nostalgic for winding watches, using black rotary phones that weighed more than a Victrola, and living at a time when GPS was a gleam in the eye of the military/industrial complex.
I’m a tech addict ever more dependent on the apps turning us into saps.
Fitbit’s biggest addition to its watches is an ability to sense wearers are stressed, and tell them. Imagine you’re minding your own business, maybe downing a huge red Slurpee and watching “Who Wants to Be the Big Brother of a Surviving Bachelorette,” and your watch says, “Hey … you’re stressed!!!!”
Well … I am now.
Because that’s the thing with features like the stress monitor, and the constant atrial fibrillation detection Fitbit is adding and that Apple Watches have. I’ve owned both, and the more exotic apps are, charitably, less than perfect. According to my various equipment, I've died seven times, sleep 44 minutes a night, and recently gave birth to a baby boy named Ezekiel.
Apple’s new innovations include one I can’t knock: The iPhone 14 can send out an emergency call for help even in places with no Wi-Fi or cellular service, via satellite. And a new feature that is supposed to be able to detect a serious car crash and put out a call for help was also announced for Apple’s phones. I’m waiting for the news stories about it swinging into action during particularly athletic roughhousing or roller coaster rides.
But those watches are also, supposedly, able to track ovulation, which is mostly useful in deciding when to, if I may use a technical term, make whoopee, either because you’re trying to conceive a new little tech consumer for the corporate machine, or trying not to.
Should our watches do that? Do we want them doing it with the same accuracy they show when, for instance, Siri thinks we’re talking to her while we’re bickering with our spouses … and invariably takes our better one-third’s side. Both Siri and significant others claim they can't understand what we're trying to say, refuse to answer clear questions, and interject random statements at the most inappropriate times.
Or so my spouse claims.
For many of us, the biggest evolutionary change is GPS navigation. In my youth I crisscrossed the nation, drunk and high, guided by nothing but a tattered 32-year-old atlas and wise gas-station attendants. Now I use Waze to get to the Holbrook Costco, which is very nearly visible from my home. And we trust tech so blindly, because it looks so shiny and competent.
When Waze tells people to drive the wrong way on one-way streets, or to take a street that was blocked off 15 years ago, they often do.
What skills we do not use, we lose. What peace of mind we gain from being able to monitor our vitals is often rendered useless by the stress of endlessly monitoring our vitals.
Now if you’ll excuse me, my smartwatch says my appendix needs to come out. Again.
Columnist Lane Filler's opinions are his own.
Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
