CanYouHearMeSantaSo the busy digital elves that constantly tinker with my car’s GPS system recently added a feature that remembers where you drive.  Everywhere you drive.  The programming wizards devised these little dots that trail behind the cursor like pixels in a game of reverse Pac-Man.* Anywhere I take my car–like it or not, want it to or not– the GPS googlemeister silently watches and records.

I guess you could give them points for transparency.

The dot system, at least, explicitly presents what we’ve implicitly ignored for the first decade or so of techno-imperialism: You’re being tracked.  (What?!)  It’s 2013, so we (should) understand by now that a bunch of companies make tons of moolah buying and trading our cookie-studded histories and, in return, give us Free Apps!!! and the chance to Share & Tell Others!!!  We should (also) realize that every step we type/swipe on the Interwebz gets recorded, stored, sliced, diced and algorithmized.**

I thought the Future would be about flying cars not webtailer drones!

And why the ducks would I want to remember where I drive everyday anywho?  Okay, maybe I want to keep copies of especially tricky itineraries (turn left at that last cow then hang a right near Sleepy Hollow bridge) but believe me, the last thing I want is a Permanent Record of my complete driving experience.  The darn thing has only been tracking*** me since Sunday but already the dots along my regular rut, I mean, route have sprouted like a bunch of nefarious cyber-mushrooms.  There’s one series of streets that, although I never thought about it before, apparently I use all the time!  Now, thanks to “upgraded” GPS software, I can actively understand just how tedious my daily life really is.  I mean, appears.

I DRIVE SO BORING!!!

It’s true that we did take a spin out of state last week–I admit it!  It was the pumpkin pie!– but the rarity of that routing makes my mundane daily triptik even more humdrum.  And, yeah, I also admit that I may have tried to “outsmart” the GPS by erasing previous journeys, taking side streets and deleting current routes.  And that weird convoluted serpentine where I wove in and out of neighborhoods avoiding freeways, highways and any reasonable straight path to my actual destination?  Yup, I wasted both time and fuel creating a more interesting digital history.

The GPS made me do it!****

Well, I guess you would say I should try not to worry too much about all this corporate data collection.  I mean, I’ve got a ton of cyber-shopping to finish so I’m not expecting to do a lot of analog gift purchasing anyway.  After all, no reason to worry about your car’s lackluster digital life when you can use your computer/cellphone/tablet to create all kinds of commercially viable personal nuggets without even leaving the house.

Ho, ho, ho!

 

Incoming!

Is that a hawk or just package delivery?

 

 

*Ooh, there’s an idea–can I turn the cursor around and gobble up the dots? Say yes!

**And then someone tries to sell you something.  Gee, thanks!

***Sorry, showing me the tracking.

****Oh, and if you’re wondering, turning off the screen does not actually turn off the tracking.  I mean, just in case you’re wondering.

 

Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes

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December 5, 2013

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