I’m not sure how I feel about every app needing to "wrap" my year with usage stats and insights.
Feels a bit disingenuous and maybe a little intrusive.
Does it matter I used the calculator 67 times?
Or that my Clipboard was my most used app?
It’s probably okay and almost inevitable that the usage stats are being recorded. I think most people either don’t know or don’t care that it’s happening.
While the privacy concerns and usefulness of data are certainly subject to scrutiny, what I find interesting is how these stats and insights are "packaged" and sold as "value" to us.
Are we all so interested in our habits that we HAVE to click the link immediately to find out. As if I’m not supposed to click the link. (Of course I clicked the link.)
Imagine walking into the coffee shop across the street from where you work. As you go through the door, music plays, lights flash, and glitter and stars fall from the ceiling. A pleasant, smiling individual offers you a gold-bound journal of your “Year In Review”.
Inside the journal you find a line-by-line, detailed log of when you arrived at work, all your restroom visits, lunch breaks, steps walked, podcasts listened to, links clicked, coffee orders, UberEATS deliveries, and what time you arrived and left every day for the past year.
Whoa. What? That just got a little creepy.
But I suppose it’s really only creepy once you know about it. Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge can be downright scary.
Maybe I’m overthinking this.
Is there a reason I might want to see this data? How is it useful? Is it even accurate?
Curiosity can be a fun distraction, and nostalgia is its faithful companion. There’s even a playful irony in using the present to review the past.
Some apps actually track useful stuff and not all of these "wraps" are bad. This info can be motivating when used by progress tracking apps.
Cool to know you walked two miles, 28 days in a row. Or ate vegetarian for two weeks. Or looked at your screen for six hours a day this week. (Six hours a day - really?)
I won’t try to tell you how to spend your time. That’s for you to decide.
For me, I have to determine if this info is serving me or just sidetracking me from doing something productive. Most of these wraps are a time-suck, vanity-driven, crock of shit.
The apps can keep track all they want, but I’ll decide if and when I need it. Don’t shove it down my throat just because you have my email address. The hoopla can stay at the coffee shop.
Leave me a comment how you feel about these "wraps". Like them? Not so much?
