These days, there are ways to track almost every aspect of fitness and health. You can track calories, sleep, heart rate, and how many steps you take every day. You can track how many miles you have run, biked, or hiked.
Tracking products often advertise health benefits. Ads for fitness tracking clocks such as Garmin and Fitbit encourage users to “adjust your body,” “unlock human performance,” and “search for Energy.” The basic idea is that knowing more about our behavior leads to healthier choices.
However, some scholars are beginning to question the assumption. Does health metrics actually make us healthier? Or does it have unintended consequences?
Digital tracking is mostly useful
Wearable fitness trackers exploded into the mainstream in the late 2000s when companies like Fitbit and Nike introduced monitors that could be synchronized with computers and later smartphones. Since then, several independent researchers have begun enquiries about how these devices affect physical health, psychological well-being and behavior.
After nearly 20 years of research, several questions were answered. One of the industry’s main claims – it seems almost true that tracking fitness improves activity levels.
Review of 71 papers studying the phenomenon “Fitness tracking has a positive effect on users’ motivations to be physically active.” Also, most studies have found that fitness tracking increases physical activity levels and makes users healthier.
However, these findings have limitations. Research shows Relatively younger (under 50) and already very active users benefit most from tracking. In other words, pursuits are perfect for those who already want to exercise.
On the other hand, older or active people are more likely to abandon their devices. And for those users, tracking can cause harm. Several studies found that guilt and frustration were reminiscent of when tracking goals fail or performance declined in peer-relatedness. This is often Lead those users to abandon the program (you guessed it) completely. Fitbit is thrown into the bin from frustration and revenue from daily life.
read more: How social posts can actually discourage movement
High performers and low performance
Aisha Sovey, a postdoctoral scholar at Jesus College Cambridge; Recently co-authored a criticism of fitness tracking metrics. She argues fitness tracking studies overemphasis on users who benefit from those who don’t.
“It reduces the lowest people,” she says. “We think this is an unintended outcome.”
The good news is that perhaps these harms can be a result of product design. The most effective fitness tracking platform Hacking user motivations through competition and social reinforcement. For example, running apps Strava Users can compare statistics with friends and followers.
For high performance, these features will boost your confidence. However, those at the bottom of the curve feel left behind.
For Sobey, it is a reminder of the limitations associated with developing mass market products due to a very individualized experience. Every human has a unique body and mind. The same tools that benefit one person must harm another.
“There are limitations to how personalised these apps are,” she says. “I’m going to take you to this endpoint.” You can choose the way you want to go, but the ending remains the same. ”
read more: There are many health benefits to exercise, but weight loss is not actually one of them
Workout fun
One study From Duke, Assistant Professor Jordan Etkin, we found that tracking can undermine the essential motivation of users if they improve their level of activity. In other words, users are encouraged to focus more on achieving their goals and less on enjoying the process.
“By drawing attention to the output, measurements can make fun activities feel like work,” writes Etkin.
In her criticism, Sobby argues that this disadvantage stems from the output that tracking apps choose to quantify.
“We can’t put anything in the numbers without having that as our goal,” she says. “If you’re trying to achieve something, that’s fine, but it distracts you from the joy of things.”
Perhaps the antidote to the pitfalls of fitness tracing is completely tracked. But instead of focusing on myopia on quantitative metrics, users sometimes make notes, take photos, or write in good old-fashioned journals.
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Gabe Allen is a Colorado-based freelance journalist focusing on science and the environment. He is a 2023 reporting fellow at the Pulitzer Center and a current master’s student at the University of Colorado Center for Environmental Journalism. His signatures have appeared in Discover Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, Planet Forward, The Colorado Sun, Wyofile and Jackson Hole News & Guide.
