I stand up from my desk and head across the room towards the kitchen. Then I pause and think, “Oh, no, I forgot my phone.” Gotta get credit for every step. I grab the phone, put it in my pocket and then move.
Have I become a slave to my step-counting device? Do I really need to know just how many steps I’m taking in a day? Why should I trust something that doesn’t distinguish between the steps uphill or downhill, or even the steps I took running and the ones in a slow amble? I log on and also check to see how many flights of stairs I’m taking.
I live in New York City. There are a lot of stairs to climb, sometimes as much as four for five flights just getting out of a subway tunnel. Check that number out. Okay, it makes me feel a little smug. (We New Yorkers feast on moments of smugness, making up for the shortage of backyard delights). When I go out to visit family in California, driving hither and yon, my phone is quick to shame me, “You’re taking fewer steps today.”
Thanks a lot, precious iPhone.
Of course, I’m grateful for my phone for a thousand reasons. I love being able to text friends. I’ve got contact info for over a thousand people sitting right there in my pocket. And gosh, when I struggle to remember that name of a spouse or some TV star, I punch in a few words, and the answer is right there. Bingo. It might even be possible that the memory files in my brain are shrinking. Why bother with them when I’ve got my phone?
And look at all the pictures I’ve taken, a digital treasury of memories. Not to mention the convenience of asking Google maps the best route to get to some place. Just the other day it came up with a subway and bus route I’d never heard of. Sheer efficiency. Not long ago when I was driving in L.A., it sent me on a freeway route that was mind-bogglingly perfect. Something this native son, who grew up in freeway-land, would never have come up with on his own.
Thanks, dear phone.
But back to this step-counting/step-shaming mechanism. We can all remember when that “10,000 steps a day” became a defined goal, and since then we’ve been told that 7000 is just fine. Maybe it was because people were just getting watches – and phones – counting steps. Pedometers go back to Leonardo da Vinci’s time, as does an Anglican prayer of confession that was introduced in the 16th-century:
“We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts…” It sticks in my head when I consider what a slave I am to this device in my pocket.
Yes, yes, I’ve tried going for a day or a week without checking to see how many steps I’ve taken. But inevitably I circle back to it. Out of curiosity, I tell myself. Or rather, looking for some reason for self-congratulation. At least you took all those steps today. Only to discover it shaming me.
I promise I won’t let it happen to me again. Got that? In the meanwhile, heading off to the kitchen for a bite to eat, I put my phone right where it belongs. In my pocket. I want to get digital credit for every step I take.
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