enne📚 reviewed Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer
Better Living Through Algorithms
4 stars
This short story can be read here: clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_05_23/
This was a fun story about a mysterious new wellness app, which seems to actually have people's best interests in mind. People call you (yes phone calls???) to remind you to do things like time to wake up but don't forget your appointment, or open your curtains, or maybe try out these hobbies you're interested in but never quite make the time for. It turns around the fact that most technology is out there exploiting you and working against your own needs, and asks what it might look like if it were the opposite.
In some ways, this is almost feels like escapeism from therapy, where some of the hard parts about self-care and self-knowledge are externalized, where external folks not only know what you need but gently nudge you through it. (But maybe things would be a lot better if everybody …
This short story can be read here: clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_05_23/
This was a fun story about a mysterious new wellness app, which seems to actually have people's best interests in mind. People call you (yes phone calls???) to remind you to do things like time to wake up but don't forget your appointment, or open your curtains, or maybe try out these hobbies you're interested in but never quite make the time for. It turns around the fact that most technology is out there exploiting you and working against your own needs, and asks what it might look like if it were the opposite.
In some ways, this is almost feels like escapeism from therapy, where some of the hard parts about self-care and self-knowledge are externalized, where external folks not only know what you need but gently nudge you through it. (But maybe things would be a lot better if everybody had this much direct and mutual support in their lives from others?)
I feel like this story is in the same optimistic vein as some of Kritzer's other work, like Cat Pictures, Please and also the CatNet series. Her ideas about what communities and technology could look like continue to just be really refreshing.