Pros and cons: Gadgets and applications for self-control
Devices Quantified Self consider a person, his activity and the environment, thereby helping to pump the capabilities of his own body. We have already dealt with this big topic in the text about wearable gadgets and are now continuing to develop it.
We like all technological things that allow you to control yourself and the situation around you, provided that they really help you to become more confident and healthy. But in any concept, no matter how good and thoughtful it is, there are always supporters and opponents. We asked familiar girls to comment on QS - not in order to understand who is right, but with the goal of presenting at once two well-founded and polar opinions.
I am a typical control freak and I want to know everything. The love of numbers and the search for patterns led me from not very precise advertising and PR to business school and electronic retail. In my previous work, I always faced the simple question: "How will you evaluate the effectiveness of an advertising campaign?" I use the same approach to myself: "How can I understand what has become better if I cannot measure it?"
People are afraid to know the truth about themselves. I know girls who do not like to stand on the scales every day, because they are upset about the results. However, if you do not know something, this does not mean that this does not exist. Excess weight will not go anywhere, bad stamina will not disappear by itself, deceive yourself, hiding from information - this is the way to nowhere. I weigh myself every day and therefore I clearly know what diet is working for me. Even if the weight fluctuations are in the amount of several hundred grams, the dynamics are best monitored on large amounts of data. It’s like stock price fluctuations: in the short run, you can lose money, but long-term investments often pay off. I run with Nike + turned on, which records the average speed, distance and route, and more recently I regularly use a heart rate monitor: my trainer made a training plan based only on this indicator. In addition to running workouts, my physical activity is measured by Nike Fuel, and I sometimes walk with my dogs longer than usual in order to fulfill the daily norm. There are people who consider this approach paranoid. I, in turn, can say that I have VO2 max 50% above the average among women of my age, that I can control my weight without the Dyukan diet and that my one and a half year old dog now gets tired of running before me. I understand how everything works, and I control all the changes in my body. "
Control Freaks and their discipline is nice to us, so we pay attention to gadgets and applications. But we understand and respect the position of those to whom all these monitors only interfere. Marina Ivanova explained why she does not like QS and what needs to be done instead of downloading and filling out the next control application.
If you scrupulously fill out the nutrition diary, consider the fluctuations of its own weight, the number of watched films, the money spent, the steps taken, your own sex drive, and so on, I have only one question: do you not spare time? From phrases like "I keep track of hair masks, pedicure dates and trips to a massage therapist" I just feel bad. All this is procrastination, sublimation and, most importantly, this desire to control everything is the fear of oneself. You are more than numbers, and there is nothing to be driven into small things, filling in the evenings with a food diary. Yes, let's say I have a couple extra pounds and sedentary work, but damn it, if I feel that only chocolate halvah will make me happy at the moment - I will go and eat it, and I will be pleased. Also, I will never check my lists like "150 cases I have to do this summer", because nobody needs it, including me (I would also stop writing them, but it seems to be genetically injected). Because when you really want to do something, you will never forget about it without the Alarm application. So you need to trust yourself, crush your perfectionism and remove all the trackers from the iPhone: if you have common sense, he will tell you that you need to walk more, play sports and eat less vanilla profiters. And if there is no common sense, then you will forget about calorie counters by the end of the first day of use. Well, in order not to skip deadlines, it makes sense to write down all the cases in one place, in order not to be pushed into the topic “what other application did I forget to fill out today?”, But to immediately see the entire list of cases.
The moral is that it’s very useful to keep tracker for about three months. To understand how much money you really spend on "wine for a romantic dinner," for example, well, or how your stamina grows if you exercise regularly. But if you have already received this data, you need to continue to work with them, and not to write down to the end of your life diligently in the list all the films that you watch.
Photo: www.withings.com, www.nike.com, www.distilunion.com, www.alivecor.com