Picture: Watkins Glen State Park, Courtney Sayre
As the world becomes more and more technologically dependent, we begin to turn to this technology for verification for everything we do in life; that we're taking the fastest route to work, that our favorite restaurant is open right now, where in the world our package is on its journey to our doorstep, and that your friend did, indeed, just read your last text and not respond. In the recent years, we have begun to desire more tactual evidence of things we used to simply, '"keep in mind". Namely, we have established very detailed and accurate ways to record and analyze our health habits, and the physical activity that may (or may not) accompany them.
Thus, the birth of wearable Fitness Trackers.
They have become great ways for us to track how many hours of sleep we're getting each night, how many steps we take per day, and flights of stairs we climb, all the while measuring how many calories it takes for our body to carry out these practices.
About three weeks into the class Health and Technology I have begun to notice some interesting connections within the content we discuss. We have become more interested in the numerical measurements of "health". Health used to be a broad, vague term but has become increasingly specific and number driven. How many steps per day, hours of sleep per night, active minutes per day, and caloric intake versus output? These are the measurements we now use to determine various different levels of our physical health. This idea of self-quantification has become somewhat of a hobby, an obsession even for some individuals.
A Fitbit user myself, I can fully understand the attraction of knowing all these numbers and feeling like you did something good by hitting your 10,000 step goal each day. I think it is a positive thing to be able to track your heart rate during exercise and see how many calories you burn. This technology allows humans to be more aware of how active they truly are on a day to day basis and make adjustments accordingly.
However, like anything, I feel that this is information that is beneficial in moderation. As a Wellness Management Major here at SUNY Oswego, I have been taught to think of Health in eight dimensions located on a wheel; spiritual, emotional, occupational, financial, social, intellectual, environmental, and last but certainly not least, physical. Ideally, each aspect of the wheel is evenly fulfilled, and if not, is being given the resources and support needed to work towards achieving "wellness" for this dimension.
I am beginning to wonder if this technology is pushing us to place too much emphasis on specifically the Physical dimension of health. Where do we draw the line? How much information is too much? As technology continues to advance, I feel eventually too much emphasis may be placed on the measurable markers of one's Physical health at the expense of other dimensions like emotional or mental. We could begin to directly correlate our number of steps or active minutes per day with how "successful" of a day it was and feel that if we do not get the correct numbers, we are a failure.
This is already beginning to happen in some ways. I recently listened to a Podcast that spoke about an increase in people reporting health anxiety due to the increase in available data and awareness regarding our health. This alludes to the possibility that there would be a negative effect on mental and emotional health because of the increase in focus on physical health influenced by Health Technology.
As stated before, everything in moderation. Generally, I feel that the technology is a positive thing. I also feel that for some people, the unregulated and expansive knowledge of our own health data could result in health anxiety. Only time will tell if this worry is well founded. I am optimistic that the remainder of the Health and Technology will offer some insight into this concept.