Orwell said nothing is your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. Turns out even that's debatable now that your watch knows you're stressed before you do.
"Nothing is your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull."
George Orwell wrote that in 1984. I think the guy was being way too generous.
Yesterday my watch told me I'm stressed before I even felt it, My laptop finished typing my email. Netflix suggested I should watch another crime documentary because apparently it thinks that's my personality now.
We have gone from "Apps are spying on us" to "hey Alexa, am I depressed?"
Why think about dinner when Zomato already knows I want biryani? Why have opinions when my feed already decided what I should believe?
Why do we even need to think? But Orwell was right about one thing. That little space in your head is still yours. You just have to remember it exists. As Sahir Ludhyanvi said,
मैं पल दो पल का शायर हूं, पल दो पल मेरी कहानी है
पल दो पल मेरी हस्ती है, पल दो पल मेरी जवानी है
We get so few moments on this earth. Maybe we should actually think during some of them.
So, may be next time when your phone tries to finish your sentence, type something weird instead. Order food you've never tried. Take a different route home.
Let’s surprise the algorithm. It's probably the most human thing you can do right now.
