I have been using my Oura ring coming up to a year now, and have quite enjoyed the experience. I have had a smartwatch earlier that tracked stuff, but the Oura is far more passive and gives a better sense of general wellbeing, without focusing on exercise. I have used it to improve my sleep a little, which wasn't hard given the only way was up from where I was, as well as monitoring my general activity, as well as workouts when I remember to log them. My Heart Rate Variability (HRV) has improved slightly over the year, but even though it is "unique" to the individual as to what high and low may be, I don't think mine is very good. Me resting heart rate is also terrible, as the lowest it gets is around 60 BPM towards the end of my sleep.
Last night I was writing about how "hard it is" to get people outside these days, whereas it used to just be a necessary part of life. While I was writing it, I was wondering when it first really became possible to just stay at home and not leave the house at all, like the character in The Whale who was morbidly obese, ordering all he needed from home. Now, it is pretty simple in many western countries, since pretty much everything can be obtained through the internet, at almost any time of day or night. And I think as a result of this, more people are presenting with neurological disturbances like social anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorders and agoraphobia.
But while these should only be a tiny sliver of any population, the fact is that there are a bundle of issues that are proving time and time again, that we aren't a healthy population. And one of the reasons I see for this is that we are not getting outside enough, which not only affects our own health, but also the social health of our area. There are many reasons for this, but for instance in a place like Finland where there is ample amounts of public spaces for social interaction as well as exercise and destressing, people are still getting worse. Largely because they aren't using them , or aren't using them often enough.
The unfortunate truth is that we are lazy by nature, where we will consistently take the easiest path forward, the road perceived as requiring the smallest amount of effort. However, due to the changes in our daily routines, this has very quickly devolved into an outcome we didn't want or intend to get. Our waist lines are increasing, as our mental health is decreasing, and our societies are falling apart as there aren't enough healthy members to keep them afloat.
I don't think anyone would want to be subjected to social scoring, but I also find it interesting that people are not complaining too much about being subjected to just that, on the many platforms they spend their time. The data they generate is used to score them socially, even if it isn't used directly by the government to control them. I think that where we are today is a society is already well into the dystopic conditions science fiction writers have imagined for many decades already, yet we do not acknowledge it personally, because we are still under the mistaken impression that we have control of ourselves. The trouble with that position though, is that a majority can't even control their emotions when they hear something they take as an insult without bursting in rage, but believe they are able to counter the subtle manipulations used by platforms that hire experts who know precisely how the majority of people behave.
They know me better, than I know the back of my hand.
As I was talking with someone who works directly in the field of investigating and exploring possibilities to improve community physical health, I suspected that whatever the solution, it is going to have to compete with the easiest thing to do. And the easiest thing to do at any given moment is, to do nothing. And that is what most of us do, most of the time; even when we know we should be doing something else. And the "nothing" most of us are mostly doing, feels like we are doing something, like scrolling a feed, or watching something on a streaming service. This makes it hard to compete with, especially since we also feel that when we aren't doing those things, we are missing out on something that would make our life better.
Even though our life is getting worse from doing it.
It is interesting that so few of us truly realise the harm we are doing to ourselves to the point that we are willing to change our habits. Our daily habits have quickly changed to be commanded from the sofa, and we are almost categorically worse off for it, yet we keep expanding the amount of time we spend on the couch, or in front of a screen. Even with all the "mobile" devices we have at our disposal, we aren't walking more, nor are we using them to improve our physical wellbeing. Pokémon Go got a few people out and about more, but the problem is, it only captures a certain kind of person.
As much as I wish it wasn't necessary, gamification is likely needed to get people moving, and to get them outside using the spaces created for activity, it needs to be incorporated into the spaces themselves. However, gamification for physical also requires some kind of reward, since apparently being healthier isn't a compelling enough reward in and of itself.
People in your area...
When it comes to behavioural design, it is quite an effective way to shift activity by comparing people to the averages in their area, in a similar way to "people like you liked" statements. So perhaps using all the wearables people have, this could be accomplished anonymously, with a lot of blind information gathered and then filtered into approximate locations and suburbs so that people could get the temperature of how people like them, in their age group, are behaving and, see how they themselves measure up. I suspect that for a fair percentage of people, this would generate enough of a competition loop that they would shift their behaviour, as it challenges our social esteem, even if only internally.
Many don't like the thought of this.
Nor do I.
The fact is though that we are failing as a society when the averages are getting worse across all of the metrics that matter for human wellbeing. We are less physically healthy, less mentally healthy, less emotionally healthy, and less socially healthy. If health is wealth, we are fast falling into an average of extreme poverty.
As far as governments are concerned, the cost of healthcare is a large cost and it has ramifications on all kinds of other factors, from productivity to military capability, and societal viability. The primary goal of government should be to increase wellbeing of the population, and we should hold them accountable for this, which would include changing the entire way government currently functions. But that is not an overnight process itself, but to have the energy to do it, we would also need energetic citizens who are willing and able to make the changes necessary to shift the course of society. We don't have them - instead we have tired, lethargic, stressed, depressed populations that are just looking for the easiest way to escape from reality.
The "build it and they will come" mentality is no longer enough to just create the space, because it also requires the incentives for the space to be used. There needs to be encouragement to push some boundaries, even if the first push is to get our asses up off the couch. For many, that is the hardest of the steps. From there, even improving our activity moderately by a percent or two each year, will see large differences in outcomes in a couple decades from now.
All this data is currently being used to sell more to us, whilst making us worse off. Yet, we should own our data and have tools and incentives available to use it to improve us, to make us stronger physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. Strong individuals who create strong societies.
We can be better across the board.
We just have to design our lives so we behave better.
Taraz
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