“Clothes make the man,” said Mark Twain. “Naked people have little or no influence on society.” In today's world, perhaps he would have said, “Mobile apps make the person. Disconnected people have little or no influence in society.”
Certainly, apps can make you more effective, bringing e-mail, messaging, and social networking to your smart phone or tablet. In our January issue, we noted how engineering apps can help your professional life, serving in four applications areas: data acquisition, remote monitoring and control, reference, and development augmentation.
In your personal life, too, you may benefit from apps that touch on similar areas: acquiring data (about your health, for example), having reference material readily available, enabling (self) control, and supporting the programmable self. What's driving the emergence of such apps? Writing in the Atlantic, Evan Selinger, an associate professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology, says, “Consumers want digital willpower”—they want to employ technology for behavior modification.
Writes Selinger, “Skeptics might believe while this trend will grow as significant gains occur in developing wearable sensors and ambient intelligence, it doesn't point to anything new. After all, humans have always found creative ways to manipulate behavior through technology—whips, chastity belts, speed bumps, and alarm clocks all spring to mind. So, whether or not we're living in unprecedented times is a matter of debate, but nonetheless, the trend still has multiple interesting dimensions.
One such dimension: “Individuals are turning ever more aspects of their lives into managerial problems that require technological solutions.”
Many of the apps Selinger cites are not much more than glorified diaries—calorie counters, for example. Others make it easy to impose financial penalties on yourself should you fail to meet goals. GymPact, for example, can transfer funds from a laggard's account to the account of someone who exercises regularly. As the GymPact website puts it, “If you meet your Pact, you get a cash reward for each day committed, paid for by those who didn’t get to the gym! Rewards have generally been $0.50 to $0.75 per workout.”
As a philosopher, Selinger devotes most of his article to the ethical concerns raised by digital willpower. He specifically addresses issues such as inauthenticity (related, for instance, to how sincere you are if you rely on an online service to send birthday greetings to your friends and family) and the fragmented self (related to whether your behavior deteriorates if you leave your device behind).
Selinger remains somewhat conflicted about the role of digital willpower, but he concludes, “While I worry about the ethical complications of digital-willpower enhancements, it's clear that in the United States, traditional notions of willpower have failed in some key regards, especially in the health arena. New approaches to willpower, whatever their pitfalls, may provide a way forward.”