Observer

Making an App of Myself

I spent a portion of the Blizzard of ’26 watching George C. Scott’s Patton pummel his way through North Africa and France, leaving death, misery, and destruction in his wake. I felt the need to be reminded that there are worse things than having to remove two feet of snow from my very long sidewalk. After all, nobody was lobbing artillery shells at me while I was digging out, and nobody slapped me when I turned into a whimpering coward when faced with Everest-sized snowdrifts in the driveway.

Those of a certain vintage may recall that General George Patton is portrayed in the great 1970 bio film as an odd man who seemed to be from another century long ago. I don’t think of myself as particularly Patton-like, but I share the crazy old bastard’s sense of being lost in time. The 21^st Century is nearly three decades old and yet my 20^th Century brain still has trouble figuring out even the simplest gizmos manufactured in the new millennium. Life before 2000 did not require the skills of a computer programmer in order to make a telephone call.

So it is with some bewilderment that I suddenly find myself struggling with a very 21^st century malady: Friends, I am here to confess that I have developed an unhealthy attachment to an app.

Until very recently, I associated the word “app” with the smell of French onion soup and the greasy texture of mozzarella sticks. I certainly was aware of the little icons that appeared on my phone’s screen, but I generally ignored them as I suspected they were designed to remove money from my wallet.

But then a friend showed me how to work the heart-shaped icon known as a Health App. He knew that I’ve been walking every morning at the recommendation of several ologists who tend to various body parts below my neck. (Prospective treatments for the dense object above my neck have been declared a waste of time.) The Health App, my friend told me, could count my steps, calculate my mileage, measure how fast I walk, and tell me how many calories I’ve burned.

This was a revelation, friends. Through the latter months of 2025, I didn’t make a move without thinking of Health App. It sent me approving messages as my steps increased. It lauded me when my mileage spiked over a week, then a month, then two months. It patted me on the backside (figurately, you know) as my MPH set new personal bests. I found myself wanting to please Health App in the way that actual athletes often wish to please their coaches, except when they’re named Bill Belichick.

But that all changed when the weather did. I didn’t notice Health App’s disapproval of me at first. But at some point in January, Health App sent me a message – in a rather cold tone, mind you – informing me that my average number of steps per week had dramatically declined since last year. This simply wasn’t fair. Surely Health App realized that the entire Northeast had been transformed into the Russian front (circa 1943, not 2026). The nerve!

My students tell me that they can talk to their technological gizmos and they will talk back. They will offer life advice. They will express emotions. They will tell my students what will be on my exams before I’ve even written them. Why, I’m told that people these days develop personal relationships with their technology. Some young folks say it is just a matter of time before nuptials are announced between human and humanoid.

Armed with this knowledge, I attempted to reason with Health App. I opened the app and started talking. This, I thought, truly made me a person of the 21^st Century. “Look,” I said into my phone, “it’s very hurtful for you to remind me that I’ve been a laggard this winter. But there’s been snow, and ice, and temperatures in the single digits. Do you think I like being reminded that my steps have decreased?”

I must have been doing something wrong because Health App did not talk back to me. But it did send a message telling me that the number of steps I had taken that day was well below my year-long average.

That sent me over the edge. I rushed to the closet, put on five layers of outerwear, two pairs of gloves, a ski cap and a pair of boots. “Where in the world are you going?” my wife asked. “It’s nine degrees outside.” I displayed my phone with the Health App open. “I’m tired of getting abuse from this thing,” I said as I marched into the cold.

I returned 12,173 steps later, looking like one of those bearded Norwegian cross-country skiers in the Olympics but without the amazing physique. I removed the icicles hanging from my nostrils and reached for my phone. Health App was pleased! “You are walking more than you usually do at this hour,” it said.

I wept tears of joy. My wife simply wept. It was time for an intervention, she said.

I found myself in a small, windowless room the following week, greeting strangers enrolled in the local AA (Apps Anonymous) program. They, too, were struggling with their app relationships. One poor soul told of his abusive relationship with his Golf App. I shuddered, recognizing that this might be next summer’s problem, if summer ever does arrive.

I lasted all of 15 minutes before leaving. The stories I heard were indeed harrowing, but I could have dealt with that.

It was the recovery method that I couldn’t handle.

It was a 12-step program, you see.