Overly Document Life analysis

In A.J. Jacobs article “The Overly Documented Life”, he explains to us how the human body is virtually unreliable in the sense of remembering things and how technology can be a possible solution to that. He presents the issue of using technology to document every hour of our lives with a combination of both the dinner table model and Aldous Huxley’s three directions model. He argues that the constant filming of everything done can be extremely beneficial, in the case of trying to find your lost wallet or using it to settle a dispute, but at the same time causes people to be less “real” because they don’t want whatever is about to be done to be filmed. He continues to follow many aspects of the dinner table with stories of how the documentation of his life has caused him to have fights with his wife and how it has helped him with the important things such as proving that he has seen a multitude of celebrities in person. He also always circles back to the fact that each new piece of technology that he uses initially appears to be helpful, but has some sort of hidden catch to it. While trying to find his lost wallet, Jacobs has the ingenious idea to use his Looxcie, a wearable camera that films everyday life, to try to find it. His long and tedious search proved was futile, but his wife succeeded within minutes by personally searching his nightstand.  However, I think he uses more of Huxley’s three-direction model. Since the author is documenting his experiences with these technologies, he offers a lot of personal insight into how effective they really are. He provides information on the subject such as the high costs of these technologies and how they require many other technologies to operate these programs. For example, his Looxcie cost $150, but to store the 186 GB of video he has on it he needs to buy an external hard drive which can cost anywhere from $120-$700. He also applies universal aspects that anyone can relate to such as wanting to remember a conversation to win an argument, being able to stay more healthy, and finding tose lost keys.