“Starting as an empty white room, Roman Ondak’s ‘Measuring the Universe’ at Tate St Ives grew through the contribution of around 90,000 participants to a constellation of black marks.
Through the simple action of measuring oneself, Ondak’s work doesn’t just expand on ideas of space and the universal but also the personal, creating a growing living artwork that questions just what a museum is for.”
Did your parents measure you against a wall or doorframe when you were a kid?
What do you see when you look at these walls? Data? Art? Stories?
Can you spot the popular self-tracking device in this photo?
It’s not the sleek, quarter-sized Shine from Misfit Wearables. It’s the blue jeans.
An intriguing new report, Tracking for Health, from Susannah Fox and Maeve Duggan at Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project finds:
7 in 10 U.S. adults report they track a health indicator (like weight, diet, exercise routine, or symptom) for themselves or for a loved one.
6 in 10 adults say they track weight, diet, or exercise routine.
Of all these trackers:
49% say they keep track of progress “in their heads.”
34% say they track the data on paper, like in a notebook or journal
21% say they use some form of technology to track their health data
8% of trackers use a medical device, like a glucose meter
7% use an app or other tool on their mobile phone or device
5% use a spreadsheet
1% use a website or other online tool
As the authors astutely note:
“This makes some sense since all someone might need to track their weight is a scale — or even a pair of jeans that only fit if someone is at their target weight. This finding is, however, a challenge to technology developers who would like to convince people to upgrade their habits. In order to capture this segment of the market they must strive to create a tool that is as seamless as keeping track in your head.”
Indeed, the importance of a seamless experience is backed up by data from a national survey on jeans conducted by The Consumer Reports National Research Center in 2010:
62% of women use their jeans as a measure of whether they need to lose weight
50% of women are holding onto a pair of their “skinny jeans” in hopes of squeezing into them again
Makers of tracking gadgets would do well to pay attention to how women describe their jeans.
According to the Consumer Reports survey,
When asked about jeans, a majority of women agree: “We’d live in them if we could!”
85% of women typically wear jeans at least once a week, though more than half said they’d wear jeans every day if they could get away with it.
Women spend just $34 for a pair of jeans, on average
54% of women generally like the way they look in jeans, 40% admit they feel sexy in their jeans but 8% dislike or hate the way they look.
Have you spent more than $34 for a tracking gadget, and does that gadget make you feel sexy?
Recommended reading
Tracking for Health, Susannah Fox and Maeve Duggan, Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project, Jan 28, 2013.
The mhealth field is growing by leaps and bounds, as evidenced by the more than 4,000 attendees from 50+ countries who navigated 4 tracks (technology, business, research, and policy) in three days at the 2012 mHealth Summit. Having attended all of the mHealth Summits since the first one back in 2009 (800 people, 2 days), [...]
Read enough articles and reviews about tracking gadgets and talk to folks who sport them and you notice a funny thing. Among the discussions of cost, accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, connectivity, and usability there is talk of ‘feelings.’ “As soon as I strap it on, I instantly feel more athletic.” “I feel self-conscious as I realize [...]
Remember that classic Far Side cartoon where a student sitting in a classroom raises his hand to ask, “Mr. Osborne, may I be excused? My brain is full.” That’s how I felt after a day and a half of sitting in a room packed with more than 200 thought leaders from across the health ecosystem [...]
Activity tracking devices are just like real estate: what matters is location, location, location. If you own—or plan to own—a Fuelband, Fitbit, Metria, BioHarness, UP or other fitness tracking gizmo, you should consider whether the device straps to your wrist, clips to your belt, or is embedded in your shoe. Otherwise you may rack [...]
Nike unveiled a new basketball shoe, the LeBron X, during the London Olympics. The Nike+ model will lighten your wallet by $315, while the basic version will set you back $180, according to the Wall Street Journal and the (unofficial) Nike blog. [Sept 14 update: Nike has now reported the price is $270] The shoes [...]
The brilliant folks at Misfit Wearables have created a fun infographic that mashes up the calorie burn of various activities (in kcal/hour for a 155 lb person) with the ‘startup cost’ of the activity (running = $80 pair of shoes). The data and sources aren’t exact science, and you have to expend a few brain [...]
When it comes to nutrition and sports performance, it can be hard to know what works and what doesn’t. Research studies are critically important to dissect out such issues as how best to hydrate, how to delay fatigue, and the role of genetics in eating for peak performance. But what really matters is what happens [...]
Guest post by Jill MacNeice I have always been a bit neurotic about my teeth. Perhaps because my mother, who was cursed with weak teeth, put the fear in me that my choppers would drop out of my head, just like that, if I didn’t brush regularly. Or, perhaps it was my childhood dentist, who [...]
Kinetic: Of, relating to, or produced by motion. Our bodies are in perpetual motion, from the winding and unwinding of our coiled DNA to the beating of our hearts and accelerating of our limbs. This blog explores, debates and celebrates the body as we sense, move and adapt.
No information in this blog is intended to diagnose or treat any health or medical condition. If you have concerns about a health issue please seek a consultation with a health care provider.
