Some things are best left in the dark

Self tracking devices are the newly desired apps to load onto your phone according to today's Sunday Age newspaper 'self accounting' they tell us is all the rage 'digital heart-rate monitors and running watches with inbuilt global positioning systems; websites to monitor alcohol consumption, calories, illness, mood or sexual encounters; mobile phone applications that lie next to your pillow at night, tallying your sleep'. Who are these self obsessed people? The need to monitor your life through internet spreadsheets and a personal pie chart sounds just a tad indulgent more so than anything Bridget Jones could have come up with. Awesome, today I've reached my maximum heart rate while opening the fridge door to consume no more than 200 calories to reach my recommended daily intake to match my low mood cycle that peaked during the first 3 hours of tracked rapid eye movement sleep. Wow, could life get any more fun than this? Tracking your weight loss doesn't require much more than noticing that your pants no longer fit and recording how many litres of water you drink a day can only lead to counting how many times it comes out the other end. Personally I think sleeping with a mobile phone under your pillow would be as healthy as sleeping in an electricity substation and if you need technology to remember how many glasses of Chardonnay you have had then you probably have a problem. As for sexual encounters being put into a colourful graph, now that would be such a turn on for any prospective date now wouldn't it? I'm sure there are some out there who would derive great pleasure from comparing each others graphed peaks and falls however the prospect of last night's encounter being captured as a year to date figure is not the stuff that dreams are made of. So even if things are trending in an upwards direction, I'm happy to carry on in the dark.