How A Smartwatch Turns Into A Shame Machine
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As someone who has lost over 250 pounds through healthy eating and exercise, I love being able to wear a smartwatch that not only tracks my steps and exercise, but occasionally reminds me to get up from my desk or even take a moment. On Tuesday, do breathing exercises. Unfortunately, I've learned over the years that as someone who is easily addicted to food, I can get caught up in hitting the calorie and exercise goals set by my smartwatch. Soon I was doing more for familiarity with the watch than my health. If the clock tells me I haven't reached my goal in my sleep, I'll be the one walking up and down the stairs until I have the clock's sympathy.
While the comedic version of this scenario plays out in many forms of entertainment, the potential problems for people (like me) who have never learned moderation when it comes to eating or even exercising are very real. I forgot that this technology, while it has good intentions, can also have drawbacks.
For example, my exercise reminders come to me every day at the same time—about five minutes after I wake up in the morning. Two minutes later, I got a reminder to meditate. I quickly realized that the "helpful" clock reminders weren't random at all: they appeared every day at the same time and were more annoying than stimulating. Am I not allowed to brush my teeth and go to the bathroom before thinking about my morning workout? Or maybe you can train at different times of the day? Or some days you don't exercise at all? Why is my smartwatch so pushy that I work out minutes after waking up?
We can blame this potentially dangerous technology on programming. I'm baffled that the makers of these watches and devices didn't spend more time programming more random patterns. But there are other annoying aspects to the device, including a "calories burned on the go" counter that often defeats the user's numerical "goal". Before I knew it, I was being pushed to a very unrealistic daily goal of burning 950 "movement calories" (not counting my "normal calorie burn").
This was not only considered dangerous, but also contributed to the constant need for self-affirmation. For some people, this may not be a problem. But for those of us who have struggled with eating disorders and self-esteem throughout our lives (I started gaining weight in first grade and weighed over 450 pounds by the time I graduated college), this kind of "cheerleading" can be very unhealthy and cause distraction. new: eating too little, moving too much, and trying to “happy” electronic devices that have no respect for our privacy or even our health.
Of course, there are people who can wear and use these devices without feeling guilty or being belittled, or going to dangerous extremes to achieve unrealistic goals. But for those of us who have worked so hard to love ourselves, no matter how tall we are or how much we work out each day, this lifeless shame can be devastating. Needless to say, these tools are inaccurate, highly inconsistent, and often report incorrect data which we may erroneously interpret as low quality for users.
Other practical ways to motivate yourself include wanting to keep up with the pets or children in your life, respecting the fit of your clothes, holding your breath while climbing stairs, and admiring yourself in the mirror. The best opportunities for change come when we take care of ourselves the way we are right now. No smartwatch or wearable can tell us that. It's something we all have. It comes from ourselves.
Diversity is the spice of life. While eating healthy and getting enough exercise is a great way to live anyone's life, we should do it for the love of life and health, not because we want to please the "shame machine" attached to our wrist. How we feel may be a more reliable predictor of whether we are living our best lives. That is, we do not need the approval of anyone or anything but ourselves.
