My Twitter was a-hootin’ and a-hollerin’ about the fact that there’s a newly released lifecasting app called Saga. Here’s the description:

Saga records your real life story, as told by the places you visited, and what you did there, automatically.

We make it easy and fun to look back on where you’ve been, what you’ve done, what you’ve said, and photos you’ve snapped, with little to no manual input required. Saga keeps up with your daily activities, automatically checking-in, and cataloging your travels in a beautiful lifelog….Saga is for the seekers, the quantified selfers, and life-adventurers, but at the end of the day, Saga is for everyone, including you. We believe everyone has a story worth telling, and today we’re making it incredibly easy to do.

Saga also integrates with a variety of popular services you’re probably already using to enhance your lifelog even more. Saga doesn’t just record your travels, but also your photos, personal notes, status updates, workout data, and more. Connect Saga with apps like RunKeeper, BodyMedia, Fitbit, Withings and Tripit and watch your timeline flourish.

I understand the whole fitness tracking thing—I use a pedometer when I go out on long walks—but lifelogging feels to me like the ultimate I-don’t-give-a-shit experience. Are people really going to go back through and relive every little thing they did for every day of their lives? Is anyone else (besides, you know, overreaching law enforcement officers) going to give a shit about your lifelog? And can your phone’s battery support a tracking app that is always on in the background? It’s entirely possible that this is just plain not for me—I’ve always considered Foursquare, for instance, to be way to trick people into becoming unpaid billboards for businesses and brands—and other people understand the appeal. What do you think, Blogtownies?

6 replies on “Is Lifelogging Stupid?”

  1. Live your life instead of thinking about how you are going to record, catalog, and later report it on Facebook. There have been 10 billion people on this earth, and you are just one of them. You will live and die and no one besides your close family and friends will give a single shit. You will be pretty much permanently forgotten after 10 to 15 years. YOU ARE NOT INTERESTING. NOTHING ABOUT YOU IS INTERESTING. NO ONE GIVES A SHIT.

    So instead of recording your life for no goddamn reason because no one, not even yourself, will bother to go back and review such mindnumbingly boring pedestrian horseshit that has been done 10 billion times, including by the very hypothetical person who you imagine watching and caring about your daily farting, why don’t you just do stuff. Not “meta-stuff” that you are observing from 10 feet over your own shoulder. Actual stuff.

  2. You know who loves this most? Advertisers. Saga is going to make boatloads of money off you by sending a list of your every movement to companies who want to know where you are and what you’re doing at all times. As the saying goes, you’re the product.

  4. Blabby, I like how you occasionally sync with Ron Swanson and then I get to imagine his voice reading your comment. It’s like community theater Parks & Rec.

  5. What I really hope is that every update will be automatically posted to your twitter and facebook accounts because I just can’t get enough of all those foursquare checkins informing me you’re getting your oil changed. CAN’T GET ENOUGH

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