Tracking everything from miles run to calories burned to hours slept, the quantified self trend is making the most of personal health data.
Yes, technology rules our lives. And it’s true that everyone is more plugged in now than ever before. But maybe that’s not always a bad thing. If we can look away from Candy Crush Saga for a few minutes, there are actually some potential health benefits to be had from technology invading every aspect of our lives.
The latest one to hit the pop-culture radar allows people to monitor every detail of their physical health. With easy-to-use devices like Fitbit Tracker and Jawbone Up to calculate activity, sleep and other stats, as well as smartphone apps that quickly track everything from calories to heart rate, anyone can precisely graph the path to their health and fitness goals.
The movement to incorporate all this technology into self-tracking and monitoring is called “quantified self.” It’s been trending like crazy over the last year, particularly with the availability of devices like Fitbit at sporting and electronics stores, and the sheer number of free calorie-tracking programs currently available online.
Some of the more obsessive people at the forefront of the quantified self movement are trackingeverything in their lives including mood, blood pressure, caffeine intake and no end of minutiae. One advocate of quantified self, Wired contributing editor Gary Wolf, defended such seemingly excessive self-tracking in a Ted Talk Conference, saying it was the key to self-improvement. “If we want to act more effectively in the world, we have to get to know ourselves better,” he said.
While the implications might be downright spooky—everyone walking around with devices recording their every move, voluntarily—the health benefits can’t be ignored.
Jaimi Ellison, a personal trainer, nutritionist and owner of Santa Cruz Core Fitness + Rehab, encourages her clients to at the very least write down everything they eat. For a lot of people, that translates into using a wearable device and/or calorie-tracking app on their phones, because it’s so convenient.
“I introduce them to the app on smart phone or Fitbit. And if they’re using it, they just have these ‘aha’ moments, because they see what’s actually happening. It shakes their belief system a little bit,” Ellison says. “A lot of people say, ‘Oh, I eat well. I eat healthy. I do a lot of exercise.’ Then they realize, ‘Wow, I’m really not eating right and doing what I’m supposed to be doing.’ And they have the power to change it.”
Ellison has noticed a significant number of people this past year using self-tracking devices as a part of their health routine and, indeed, in August the Wall Street Journal noted that quantified self is becoming big business.
Of course, people have used pedometers for years, and health experts like Ellison were writing their calories down on paper before computer programs existed to do it for them. But as that technology has gotten cheaper and easier to use, more and more people are getting interested in their stats.
One particularly interesting technological change is just how easily people can track their sleep with the Fitbit and Jawbone Up. It doesn’t just track how long a person is sleeping, but how many times they wake up during the night, and how deeply they sleep.
“If they don’t have restful sleep, it can affect their energy levels for sure,” says Ellison. “If you’re having a lot of waking sleep, then you’re not getting the hormone release you’re supposed to, and you’re feeling tired all the time.”
This information, in conjunction with calorie intake and activity levels, can create a much more accurate picture of people’s health than they had access to even five years ago. But, of course, none of this technology means that devices are going to do all the work—yet.
“You can buy all the gadgets in the world. It’s not going to solve the problem of hard work,” Ellison says. “If you get that Fitbit, and it just sits there, and you don’t actually take the time to check out what the readings are, it’s not going to do you any good.”
