"The Perfect Gizmo For The Narcissist"
As well as sucking up personal information, wearables could fuel an unhealthy obsession with personal wellness. …
Instead of checking in with social networks, we spend more time checking in with our own bodily rhythms. As a result other people start to become more interested in what is going on inside themselves rather than what is happening in the world.
And that’s a bad thing?
Is “checking in with social networks” really more important than than spending a few seconds a few times a day to see how much you’ve walked, how many calories you’ve burned, and what your general heart rate might be in action or at rest? Does saying “LOL OMG” to strangers on Facebook really take logical precedence over things like managing diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and weight loss? Is pushing a few extra Twitter acknowledgements really more mission critical than keeping track of your vitamin and prescription pill regimens? This is an interesting line of reasoning, particularly as it seeks to “other” future Apple Watch owners by browbeating them into some sort of collectively assigned personal shame for having the audacity of wanting to focus just a little bit more on their own individual health and wellness. How dare they!
As far as Apple Watch proving “narcissistic” tendencies in users, I would simply point out that the basic modern smartphone offers far more “narcissism potential” than any camera-free wearable ever could. Smartwatches didn’t make “selfies” a thing.
I guess when Cook and company said that Apple Watch was their “most personal product ever,” they really meant it.
And it’s freaking weak people out.