Smartphone app encourages exercise and safety

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My Smartphone loves me and wants to help. It alerts me about the weather, encourages me to exercise, and keeps me from getting lost when I travel. She is persistent, and she never forgets.

Never. Now take my walking goal, for example. I just wanted to track my steps when I take a walk, but Phone has my health to be concerned about. If I don’t meet my goal, Phone alerts me several times a day, playing the guilt card. One morning, Phone messaged me: yesterday you walked one minute, so today, why don’t you try for 11 minutes. During warmer months when the days are longer, I am able to walk an hour each day, but when winter comes, I choose a different form of exercise. Phone doesn’t realize this so continues to harass me with insults masked as encouragement.

Now before you start thinking Phone is a bully, I will tell you about the time I decided to run a mile with my son’s girlfriend. I thought Phone would keep track of how long I took to run a mile. Instead, Phone wanted to protect me from getting hurt. “You’re going too fast. Slow down!” Son’s girlfriend thought I was loping along at a rather dull rate as it was, but I huffed out, “I better listen to Phone.” We slowed. Again Phone said, “You’re going too fast. Slow down!” I slowed down more. Son’s girlfriend groaned. Phone continued to tell me to slow down so I decided to walk. I was walking at a good clip. Phone was happy. I decided that I wanted to run, so I picked up the pace and threw caution to the wind. Son’s girlfriend wanted to sprint to the finish, but I had Phone to think about so I just kept going steady, all the time with Phone admonishing me about my speed.

Exercise isn’t the only thing that Phone worries about. Phone cares about my work so informs me of my travel times. Phone often tells me that it will take me one hour and 26 minutes to get to work. Some days, traffic is better and I can get there in one hour and 25 minutes. I don’t know what Phone knows that I don’t. Maybe Phone is still trying to get me to slow down, but this time to work business is ridiculous since I work at home! I can’t fathom how it can take me so long to walk from my bedroom to my kitchen, but hey, Phone knows best!

If I need direction of any kind, I can depend on Phone. How I ever functioned before, I don’t know.

Do you have a phone app that gives frequent reminders about something?