A Day in the Life

The alarm rings and in half-sleep I call out to the coffee maker. Armed with a mug of hot joe, I sit at my laptop where companies gather and share information about my news consumption, entertainment preferences, political attitudes, and shopping habits. When I leave the house, my departure time is recorded by the smart lock and our doorbell camera captures my movements and my outfit.

In my driveway, my neighbor’s security system reminds me that I am being recorded. Driving to work, my vehicle’s maker tracks my route, speed, braking and the insurer tracks these and the handling of my phone, via which my spouse, parents, and kids can watch my progress through traffic to the office.

Along the way, several police cameras collect information on my license plate, car make and model, condition, and more. One isn’t a real camera — it’s a dummy that police have installed to arrest people who try to damage the real ones. A bevy of cameras on office and retail buildings record my travels, during which I stop at a coffee shop, where a man records audio and video of my interaction with the barista via his eyeglasses.

A loyalty app on my phone tracks my order for the coffee company and I go on my way. I pull into my spot at work next to a parked driverless taxi that records me putting on my make-up. A parking app records the location of my car. In the lobby of my office building, a machine recognizes my face and lets me through the turnstile to get onto the elevators. At my cubicle, I log onto my work computer using my fingerprint.

Throughout the day, my employer tracks, for my quarterly performance review, my keystrokes and the percent of time I use AI tools to complete work, while I review data from the company’s factories and warehouses with real-time worker movements and assess detailed reviews from customers of the performance of our delivery people they’ve recorded on their doorbell cameras.

I don’t use email for personal use because my employer monitors it, so I wait and use my phone when I’m off-site during my lunch break to scroll social media, where I post anodyne comments about a recent political story, the comments on which are actively being monitored by the feds. The school’s learning management system notifies me that my son got an 87 on his chemistry quiz and that he skipped his appointment with his counselor.

I remember to reimburse a friend for a dinner out on a payments app and I see she recently had martinis with a mutual friend. A woman at the lunch spot takes a photo of me on her phone before telling me she likes my dress and asking where I got it. My spouse sees my location and asks if I can pick up his favorite dish for dinner. Meanwhile, an ad for the store where I bought my dress appears on my Instagram feed. The restaurant’s loyalty app records my sandwich order.

Back at the office, I present my face again to gain entry. The afternoon is spent on video calls with branch offices that are recorded and summarized for management by AI. I drive home, tracked by my car, phone, insurance company, police, and family, and my return is recorded by my neighbor and my doorbell.

The kids gossip at the dinner table about a friend who was caught vaping in the school bathroom by a smart sensor. After dinner, I sit down with my daughter to review her homework, but the school has been subject to a cyberattack and the portal has been shut down, so we email the teacher with her personal essay after she had fed it into an chatbot for proofreading as per the assignment.

After the kids are in bed, I check my steps for the day and spend some time on a free relaxation app that had collected information on my mental health during sign-up. Time for bed where my husband straps on his CPAP machine, which will send his doctor data on his sleep. Nighty night!