This is a familiar scenario with me: I’m walking out the door of the office and it hits me like a high strung boxer — I have no idea what I’m making for dinner. Of course I could go out to eat, make it easy on myself, but my wallet’s pretty light and my kids only want cheeseburgers. So I resign myself to stopping at the grocery store and I start to compile a list in my head of the things I’ll need to make something of at least moderate sustenance despite the fact that my culinary prowess ends at “salad.”

I get to the store, breathe a quick sigh of relief as the automatic doors slide apart for me and confirm that my soul is still intact (Simpsons reference anyone?) and make my way to…wait, what am I here to get?

Oh right, I’m making dinner. I pull out my phone and open up my list app where just a few minutes earlier I frantically typed out everything I thought I might need. Then my gaze wanders to other colorful items lining the shelves and sitting stoically in old wicker baskets meant to present an atmosphere of rural contentedness

“Oh, this might go well together.”

“This is on sale. I could make it work.”

And then, inevitably, “I wonder if I already have this.”

The answer, almost certainly, is yes. But without knowing for sure, and convincing myself that the crux of the entire dinner is this single item without which culinary society as we know it will surely topple, I put it into the cart. I pay, I go home, and I sob openly upon finding out that the crux ingredient I was so sure I didn’t have is actually the fourth I’ve bought in as many weeks. And on top of that there were several items I forgot to buy; neglected to even add to my list in fact. I endure a verbal lashing from my two year old while my five year old fixes a supper of dry cheerios for us and then I escort myself down to the basement to sleep behind the dryer in shame. But all of this could have been avoided.

Rewind to the part where I look at the list app on my phone. The collected potential for technology, especially of the sort that we have with us constantly, is summed up in this one instance. This app exists entirely as a function of what I input into it. It regurgitates my list back at me. It’s glorified paper. And that’s because the app isn’t taking into context the rest of my life (as far as that pertains to my eating habits at least).

Let me rewrite this scenario: I get to the store and immediately take my phone from my pocket to fire up an app. The list is already made but this is the first time I’ve opened the app all day. I swipe the screen to the left to see exactly what I already have in my pantry at home. I go back to my list and follow the path of items from aisle to aisle. As I’m about to drop a bottle of apple cider vinegar into my cart (it’s an impulse—not something on my list—but I just checked and I know I don’t have any at home either) I get a buzz on my phone.

A notification pops up that says, “You’ve got tomatoes, corn, ground beef, and cheese at home. Why not pick up some shells and lettuce and make tacos tonight?”

“Oh and here’s a great new recipe you could use.”

That’s power. Just by having a little more insight into the way that I eat, the app created my list for me, suggested what to make for dinner, and then gave me the information I needed to actually make it. And at no point did it tell me I should go anywhere near my arch-nemeses, the evil shellfish.

My point is that up until now technology couldn’t contextualize the information it had access to. But the more that we are willing to bring technology into every aspect of our lives, carrying it in our pockets everywhere we go and making it a part of everything we do, the more data is available for technology to react to. When technology is designed in such a way that it can make use of that context, the gap between the real world and the digital world closes and the technology goes from being reactive to being proactive. Big data equals context, context brings simplicity, and simplicity is where I make my bed.