The Apple Watch and My Anxiety
I couldn’t really enjoy Christmas dinner this past December. For one, I was sick with some odd sort of throat infection. For another: my Apple Watch kept buzzing and telling me that my heart rate was high. I mean, of course it was. I had a fever. That’s how bodies work, Apple.
Still, particularly in my unfortunately sober state, this new information was additional cause for worry. I was already stressed because I had a deadline the next day, and also the world is going to catch fire in twelve years or something. My octagenarian father, also a worrier, actually held my wrist to check my pulse. “It is racing,” he said, his brow creasing and furrowing even more than usual.
More information is supposed to empower us. That is the pre-21st century idea anyway. But this extra data was just one more thing to exacerbate my anxiety and hypochondria. Now, doctors are also worried that the new EKG feature in the Series 4 Watch will do the same thing: make people worry without reason and then have them clog emergency rooms. We live in a world overflowing with information and more of it isn’t necessarily of help. For those us with anxiety, it can often just make things worse.
I had received the Apple Watch as a gift from my brother the Christmas before. It was extravagant and unexpected, and when I objected, my brother said that people with real jobs can afford to splurge occasionally, and hey, fine, I get it, writing isn’t lucrative, message received, thanks veer ji.
I don’t think I would have bought an Apple Watch on my own. It’s neat, and I like it, and but it’s also aimed at people outside my income bracket. Now that I do have one, however, I enjoy it. It lets me check text messages while walking down the street, without reaching into my pocket for my phone, and during the summer when I cycle, it is great for tracking rides. Sense of accomplishment and all that. It’s also just neat to watch Apple tweak the interface and figure out what a smartwatch is supposed to both be and do.
The true usefulness of the Apple Watch came into focus when my cell carrier finally and belatedly got around to supporting the LTE feature, which lets you leave your phone at home and still receive calls and texts. It’s spotty at best (perhaps the Series 4 is better?) and I’ve definitely missed messages. In general, though, it works. You can leave your phone at home, especially for quick trips or — and this is the key bit for me— if you take a book to a coffee shop and are the kind of person who cannot stop checking their phone, just having the Watch is a bit of a godsend.
It’s more than that, though. As an anxiety-ridden person, part of the reason I take my phone everywhere is that I don’t want that day to be the one time I miss a call about my elderly parents or some other calamity. The phone is a security blanket, but that security isn’t entirely illusory either: having it with me allows someone to reach me if there is in fact an emergency.
The funny thing about the Apple Watch is that as it also has the capacity to make my anxiety worse, it also allows me to mitigate it too. Leaving my phone at home sometimes lets me clear my head and better focus on a book or just the world around me, while also letting me still be reachable. It’s like… a metaphor… for the ambivalence of technology or something.
Now if Apple could just leave me alone when I’m sick and trying to enjoy Christmas, that would be great.
