Health apps and watches – at what point does it go from health tracking to obsession and where is our data going?
I recently read an article (in the reference) about health tracking apps and watches. The article discussed the beginnings of health tracking, it started for people with various conditions such as diabetes where they are now more able to track their glucose spikes, for athletes to track the effects of their diets on their health, for women to track their period cycles, for people with heart conditions to track their heart beats. All of those are very positive uses of this new technology and, I am sure has been invaluable to the people who need it. But these apps and watches have now become mainstream and there are two major points I’d like to discuss.
There’s been a huge spike in the ‘average’ person using health tracking apps and watches. Information that we used to get through our 5 senses, how our body felt, how our mind felt, is now getting told to us through numbers. Through the goals that we didn’t know we were meant to hit and through the pressure of sharing these achievements on various social media platforms. All of this has led to an increase in borderline obsession, having to hit those 10,000 steps, having to sleep in the right way, having to drink enough water, having to check our pulse, and record every time we exercise. I recently bought myself a sports watch and pride myself on having a healthy, balanced lifestyle, the first thing I noticed is that I felt pressure when I wasn’t hitting my goals. Goals that I didn’t previously know existed. Goals that are based on my body data, but this data isn’t tracking my physical pain after training or my mental health, when I wake up one day and just don’t feel like working out.
The second challenge is how our data is used; a sentence that stuck by me since watching ‘The Social Network’ on Netflix is: “if you can’t see the product, you are the product”. A lot of tracking apps don’t offer you to opt out of sharing your data, FLO a popular period tracking app, used by 100M women, was found to be sharing health data with advertising tech companies including Facebook. Health data is particularly personal, do we really need global companies to access it?
So, my question to you, the reader is,
- How far should we as consumers, track our health? What features should be turning on or off?
- How far should major companies have access to our health data? Should we be able to opt out or opt in?
Reference:
- https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/05/intimate-data-can-a-person-who-tracks-their-steps-sleep-and-food-ever-truly-be-free
Hi Chloe, very interesting blog post! I think you raised some very valid points, and it also got me thinking about some aspects of those health tracking applications that I had not considered before. It has become so normal to track everything, that it is easy to forget all the implications it has on us, not only in terms of data sharing, but also the mental effects.
It’s also important to keep in mind when using these applications that the health advice the provide is generalized to suit the “average” person in the general public, but most of them fail to take into account the fact that every person’s body is different. And therefore, there is no one general formula that can fit everyone. Although the applications try to personalize and cater to individuals by asking for weight, height, age and other factors – it is still important to reflect on to what extent these personalizations are still accurate. Of course, the main purpose of most of those apps is to promote a healthy lifestyle, whether that is the amount of calories you are supposed to eat or the amount of steps you are supposed to take. But as you mentioned, it is also important that we don’t forget to listen to our own bodies first before following what those applications say. And when it turns into an obsession, to what extent is that considered healthy anymore?
As for the data sharing, the idea behind the access to personal data and information could be to possibly use the health data for the greater good. However, it is important to consider who owns this data and how the access to this data should be granted, as this type of data sharing has not received a lot of attention. We come across many of these types of warnings daily and mindlessly click on “consent” or “agree”. Often when we consent to letting our data be used and monitored, we do not consider what the implications are behind that. So I definitely think that it is good for consumers to be aware of the health tracking products they purchase, and the tracking apps they use for monitoring purposes. And overall, with this awareness, I think it is also important to give people the opportunity to decide whether they want to opt out or opt in the data sharing.
Hey Natia, I agree about data we do mindlessly approve things. Maybe it’s time to start reading the fineprint 🙂