Don't laugh, but the Mom of No finally got around to updating the iOS on her phone, about two years after it was released. Messing with technology makes me a bit nervous, and it hadn't really been necessary until I started getting messages from the apps I had installed, telling me that my iOS was out of date and the app upgrade couldn't be run. The situation was becoming a code red technology emergency.
So I ran the update, without teenager help, even, and it went well. All my nightmares about the phone crashing and losing all my data went unrealized. Whew, what a relief. I was half expecting a message to appear that said "what took you so long, technophobe?" but there was no judging. Not yet.
A day later, I was waiting in line and I started poking around, looking at all these new little gadgets that had miraculously appeared on my phone. One was called "Health". What was this, I wondered? Some new app that would harangue me relentlessly until I quit procrastinating about making that annual well-woman exam? I wasn't sure I wanted that, although I probably need it.
I pressed down on the little square, and what appeared was a chart showing how many steps I'd taken that day, and how many miles I walked. The conclusion you could come to by looking at it was easy: I sit a lot and don't walk very far. In other words, I'm lazy and I have a desk job.
I will own that I don't get as much exercise as I should. However, now that I know that my phone knows that, I started feeling like I had something to prove. I do walk more than you say I do, you silly phone. You have no idea how much I am walking. Sometimes I am walking and I do not take you with me. This count is not accurate!
The next day, I had to go talk to a co-worker. I took the phone. I'm walking! I'm going down the stairs! I'm going back up the stairs! Look, phone, I am up to nearly 2,000 steps and it's not even noon! I became determined that I was going to get that app to say that I had walked 10,000 steps that day. Everywhere I went, the phone went, too. I even parked further away than I needed to in the grocery store parking lot, just to get more steps on my phone.
Later, the Son of Never Stops Eating and I went to the Y to work out. I was determined to get credit for that on my phone. Would my phone count the number of steps I took on the treadmill if I didn't carry it with me? What if I stuck it in the little holder? I started experimenting. I probably looked silly, walking on the treadmill carrying my phone next to me. However, the step count was going up, up, up! I was winning!
I actually have no idea how accurate that count is. I also know that my phone really doesn't care how far I walk, or how many steps I take in a day. However, I still don't want my phone thinking I am lazy. I suppose if that gets me to move around more, then it's probably a good thing. So if you see my car parked at the very back of the parking lot, I'm doing one of two things: I'm parking under a tree to get the shade, or I'm showing my phone who the boss really is around here.
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