Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer : Clarkesworld Magazine – Science Fiction & Fantasy
June was the first of my friends to get into it. This isn’t surprising—she was playing Wordle for weeks before Margo or I discovered it. When we met up for our weekly lunch, she kept checking her phone and I assumed it was some new game. Then she put it down with a smile and said, “Abelique told me not to pick up my phone again until after lunch was over.”
“I love the idea of an app that tells you to put your phone down more. For your own good,” Margo said, her eyes glinting.
“It’s more than that.” June took a bite out of her tuna melt. “For one thing, you also agree to occasionally nag other people to put their phones down.”
Margo and I both laughed, and June flushed. But she did not, I noticed, touch her phone again until we were ready to leave the diner.
It was like that with Abelique. I couldn’t un-see it. Or un-hear it, really, because it’s not like I was peering over people’s shoulders at their phones, I was overhearing people talking about it. Abelique told them to make clam chowder for dinner. Abelique had assigned them a movie to watch. Abelique sent them to bed at nine p.m. It was that last one that caught my attention enough that I actually looked it up. “A complete lifestyle app” was what Wikipedia called it. This was not actually all that enlightening.
