I remember watching the movie “Eat, Pray, Love” and noticing how the Italians in the movie didn’t have an internal monologue in their head, pushing them to always do more. They enjoy life differently without the “hustle culture” Americans have gotten so accustomed to. In the film, Luca Spaghetti casually says that, “Americans know entertainment, but don’t know pleasure.”
While I was writing a review for the movie on the Letterboxd app, I began to question if he was right. I’m cataloging this movie, but am I truly enjoying it?
Americans have become obsessed with tracking, but these apps inspire people to do more, like pursue more hobbies, build communities and strive to achieve or experience new things. Life is impossible to quantify. It’s not like the more runs you log or the more movies you’ve watched means you’ve lived more.
I am part of a group that has added a plethora of apps on my phone to track almost everything. I personally track the books I read on Goodreads, the movies I watch on Letterboxd and I review all the restaurants I go to on Google Maps.
I love the satisfaction of completing a book and clicking the button on Goodreads to share my opinions and review. It almost encourages me to read more–so I can track more and feel accomplished.
This generation has become obsessed with productivity and proving to everyone that they are fulfilled. One could argue that we have always been this way, but now we just have so many platforms to showcase it.
Some people may even think that all of these tracking and reviewing apps are just another way people find a dopamine hit and get the validation we want. This may be true, but all these apps inspire us to pursue our hobbies, introduce us to different perspectives, connect with our community and squeeze the most out of life.
Is there a certain point we need to draw a line though?
On my calendar, I track how many days I exercise. When it’s over four days, I’m content and feel accomplished; on those busy weeks when I get under three workouts, I stress about my progress. The running app Strava has become so popular that I see people constantly posting how long they ran each day. There are too many apps like My Fitness Pal that make it easy to track everything you consume.
According to NPR, almost one in three Americans use a wearable device to track their fitness.
These apps do have positive effects, but they almost limit our experience when we no longer slow down and go at our own pace. It’s a rare experience to browse through a library to find a book by a random new author without consulting Goodreads or BookTok for approval. Sometimes these apps cage our experience by encouraging us to follow the crowd instead of fortuitously discovering things on our own.
Society needs to be more thoughtful with its consumption. We need to take the time to think critically about what we do on our devices, and whether it truly makes you happy or if it is a tracking obsession giving you a quick dopamine release. I am definitely not encouraging you to stop tracking–please do continue tracking if it makes you happy. I will surely continue discovering new movies and adding to my watchlist on Letterboxd, and I know you will too.
Let’s all just make sure that these apps don’t define who we are or limit our organic enjoyment of life. We can’t let tracking everything consume us; we need to learn when the tracking is taking over and how to delete these apps when they become unhealthy. Keep in mind that happiness is not quantifiable, and fulfillment is something only you can feel; no app can tell you that (accurately at least).