For a few years I have wanted a fitness watch of some kind to track my rigorous amounts of activity at the keyboard each day, but I have never been able to warrant buying one, til today. What tipped me over the edge was last night's post by Asher on his own purchase of a watch and I went down the same path and got the Amazfit GTR - so now we can be watch buddies!
As said, it was the post that pushed me over the edge, but I have been "edging" for a fair while already and over the last few weeks, there have been little pokes and prods trying to get me to shoot my load and part with my hard earned money. Well earned money, I have desk jobs - so it isn't exactly climbing Everest - but I do think a lot - something that watch probably doesn't measure for.
I think that if a watch could measure mental activity, people might be surprised how much they think. If it also measured the quality of thought and the importance of topic - that would be another matter entirely. "Congratulations, you completed your 10,000 mental steps today! But only 27 of them count as valuable."
I digress.
So, I went and bought the watch, synced it up to my phone and it is charging.
What is interesting in this for me is that since we don't get junk mail advertisements, I don't read magazines or newspapers, I don't randomly consume from the internet or scroll mindlessly through social media feeds other than Hive (which isn't mindless), the exposure to advertising is very limited. Instead, my purchase appetizers come through the relationships I have.
With the watch for example, over the last couple of weeks I have been around colleagues and friends who have mentioned watches and compared brands and the like, even though they don't know I run (as looking at me at the moment might not be a give away). It is important to them though and over the last few months, it has become more so as they have been looking for more outdoor activity since lockdown started.
For me, this feels like a much more organic process of getting information that is relevant to me and I liken it to having a party where people can bring a friend. I am more likely to have something in common and like a person who is a friend of a friend I already like. It is a handshake introduction from someone I already trust - a web of trust.
In my experience, social proofing is the strongest and stickiest form of advertising, as it plays on the historical relationship of those involved, rather than being a cold call or passive browse scenario. Of course, if I did browse social media like a normal person, after my search for the watch online, my feed would fill with advertisements pushing the watch so it was continually in my eyeline.
People say they aren't affected by internet advertising, but the truth is that if it didn't work as well as it does, the advertisers wouldn't be paying what they do for it. When the first instances of the future decision to buy are introduced from a social group, the advertisements become far more acceptable and many people even welcome them into their lives out of convenience.
However, I know that while I don't browse a lot of advertisement real estate, my peer group does, and then the chicken or egg scenario comes into play. Which is the real catalyst for my purchase, the person who buys and shares their experience, or the advertisement seen by that person - and if they are someone of social influence, people are more likely to follow suit. For example, one of my friends last week at a barbecue was talking about trackers and while he has a very good one, as long as a watch is pretty decent and does an adequate job, it will be fine.
This is because like most people these days, even if we don't know it, we are gamifying and tokenizing our experience by introducing the tracking of our activities, keeping score, so to speak. On top of this, we are integrating our experience to compare them to others in our peer group (even if strangers we don't know) and seeing where we lay on the curve, are we better or worse - and no one wants to be below average - so we take a few more steps, got to bed a little earlier, eat a salad instead.
There are so many psychological factors clustered around consumer decision making itself, it is hard to encapsulate. Then once we layer social proofing factors, peer group pressures and cultural conditioning over the top, it is a very dynamic matrix for anyone to truly understand to the level that they can always know when they are being manipulated. Well, it is actually pretty easy, as we are always being manipulated, and those who believe they aren't or can catch every instance, are likely the most conditioned of the flock.
What I think though, is that while a lot of harm can be done through social engineering as the incentives from "suppliers" looks to maximize profit at any cost, a lot of good can come from it too. I wonder if the social energy that for example is put into a protest, riot and looting, was instead put into daily activities toward improving the environment and culture, if things would improve without the need for centralized dictation.
What I do know through my own experiences is that our peer groups have massive impacts on who we are and how we behave and again, I am not sure if it is a chicken or the egg scenario - do birds of a feather flock together, or does experience of peer groups keep them together? When you are out walking on the streets next time, take note of groups of people walking together and see if there are similarities in the way they dress or their body type...
But we are all individuals, right?
While the harm can be great, if we as individuals engineer our own environment to better suit who we are and support where we want to go from this day forward, we are far more likely to actually get there, or get closer to there. Reaching goals is not done through buying a gadget though, it is done through the activity performed toward that end and while some gadgets will encourage activity, others will compete for the energy and time in another area. This is part of the gamification too perhaps.
In my opinion, who we surround ourselves with matters an enormous amount, as we start to mimic our peers in appearance and behavior and therefore, want much of the same as them and get similar results to them. For me, social proof has validity power because I spend time building trusted relationships with people from a lot of backgrounds and skill groups, that I can use as my reference group, for times I am uncertain or need a second opinion. This doesn't only affect the purchases I make, but it also impacts on my thoughts and mindset and at times, paradigm shifts can happen.
If the mind doesn't change, what does?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Watch buddies!
I hope it fits nice and encourages activity.
Did you go for neon too? :D
It has been a long time since I have worn a watch, it feels weird.
Yes!!
No.
I went boring.
How boring?
This boring?
That was my first choice!
Nice!
I see you like "fake" analog faces too :)
What does annoy me is that the date is wrong! M/D/Y makes no sense ... Americans...
The proper way is, D/M/Y
I agree.
That and not using the units of measurement of the International System.
Very annoying!📏⚖️🙅♀️
But the face is cool anyways :D
Soon you will go for the neon, the little lady will be a fan I am sure :)
I am sure, but once I show her, she will make me change it all the time to new ones :D
It does look like quite the dandy of a watch/fitness thing. I have a different make but am impressed by the looks of this new punk watch on the block!
on the blockchain - there is now two at least, that is the beginning of a trend :D
Soon all hivers will have them and it will be like the zombie hordes :0D
Hope that we will see a super fit Taraz strolling around on Hive one of these days :)
I would like to see that too. I think it has mostly gone the other way since I joined :D
As they say, persistence and perseverance.
Or is that perseverance and persistence? LOL.
Petulance and pestilence?
Hahaha, Marian giggled at this!
We might all become inspired to shape up with posts like this circulating. Or maybe not. :)
I like the maybe not part :)
I predict: in 5 years, the most popular will be watches that completely remove any tracking from you! 😎
A watch of digital invisibility?
yes bro - I think we need to patent the idea 😎
I agree with making purchases not through scrolling around or ingurgitating massive ads but rather through the power of our own relationships. I do believe it is better to make a purchase after someone who you trust recommends you something. The social proof is a valid concept and it does have less chances of dissapointing you as the classic "as seen on TV". I am sure we will be seeing your greats fitness statistics in no time😊
Have to know the person recommending too though. I know one in particular where everything he buys is the best, until you buy the same and then he starts to reveal the truth of his opinion. i don't buy the same as him ever.
Oohh I wouldn't like such a person
It's an expression of trust in you-the influencer and content creator that I read the article at all. I last had a watch on my wrist November 10, 2001. The day we opened the coffee shop I broke the band on my watch. I put it in a 'holder thingy' in my GFs pickup, and I have't seen it since.
But I get the 'trusted source' and advertising part. I must be an influencer too because I don't mimic anybody. I drive a shit box Toyota, ride a motorcycle alone and far, and wear T shirts that are older than many people here on hive. (I have one from Daytona Bike Week and one from Sturgis 1989).
I really do feel for the people that have to 'be like Mike'. I costs a lot of time and energy to keep up.
What about the girlfriend and the pickup? :D
in response to someone, I was going to write a post on this. Leaders are made - not by themselves, but those who follow them. An influencer is someone that has been able to build up trust in some way, and a real influencer has the consistency to hold that trust long-term, as even when they make mistakes, people trust that it was made in good faith. Most of the social media influencers are just famous people with lots of followers, they don't actually have trust - just attention.
Nothing wrong with any of that. I don't have any shirts from when I was 10 though :D
This is the privilege of not being a follower, you go where you choose. A lot of people want to follow leaders, and then blame the leader for the final destination.
I really miss that pickup. It was a serious piece of gear. :)
"People buy things from people they know, like and trust". That was marketing genius from the 50s and it's still true today.
For sure. These days, young people think good service is being a sleaze :)
True stuff, and I'm actively trying to stay away from devices that encourage this. While it can be a motivational tool to take those 1000 steps more to get your 10.000 daily, or to run that extra lap to burn those nice round 300 calories, I don't think it's something that's sustainable or healthy in the long term. Smart watches like these let don't leave too much room for failure, and that scares me. It makes our society even more results-driven and number-driven than I would like it to be.
I appreciate people who can live by the numbers and put in the work to reach the results they want to read on their devices, but I don't envy them. I wouldn't like to live life like it's a daily challenge, because I already have enough of those waiting for me around the corner. I don't want to see my watch pause at 3/4th of the bar because I "only" did 8500 steps today instead of 10.000. Sometimes 8500 is good enough.
Not saying that I disagree with your article, but I do take a different stance on it. My friends can love their devices and healthy lifestyle all they want, it wouldn't differ me on eating my pizza tonight. I'm a healthy young man with a healthy lifestyle and I'll keep it that way for sure, but in no distant future I will resort to any sort of device to keep track of that. I will listen to my body and look in the mirror, and that will have to do :).
The tracking gear is a tool. Most allow you to set your targets yourself and thus define whether the watch becomes pressure or is just there to generate some stats allowing you to see if your healthy life is indeed as healthy.
More often than not the pressure comes from social circles measuring against each other or platforms like Strava and Runkeeper.
Tools are supposed to be our tools, we are not their slaves de facto.
I considered the same watch little more than a year ago. Compared different models for months. In the end I realized all I truly cared about was an average overview of my heartbeat. I went for a cheap MI Fit band and while it had a bunch more, I got what I wanted and even basic sleep analysis which was rather interesting.
That tracker and its performance reminders never pressured me. I set the targets low enough to have to be hungover all day long to actually get any reminder. It is totally possible to be combine useful info without feeling tracked or pressured/forced into performance. But that may require actual use and configuring of the tool rather than black/white assessment only.
If you have the discipline to not succomb to them, as exhibited, you most likely belong to the small demographic who can more out of them than most because you will configure the tool to work for you. Rather than be defined by "universal standards" which are mere average recommendations.
I see what you mean. Some people might be able to use these devices to push them a bit further without feeling pressured, or maybe they like them purely out of interest for data.
I'm not like that. I don't want to know my daily heartrate, I don't care about my sleepcycle and I don't need to know how many steps I take daily. I'm healthy since my body says so. I feel it. I don't need numbers to prove it for me, you know what I mean? I think society as a whole is drifting away from their own emotions too much and it feels like we're more comfortable to trust a device to tell us we're fine than we trust our own body and mind.
Perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point I guess :).
You know those people that go to the gym and always skip leg day? I think that is what many of us do in many areas of our life, we do what we like or think has an effect, even if we are actually putting our mind or body out of balance. For some people at least, these kinds of tools can be used to recalibrate and set new defaults.
We're not there yet but the top devices like Apple Watch and Samsung Fit will always more become "health prevention" devices as they cram more and medical hardware in those small casings.
We already have heartbeat irregularity discovery in those, we know it's inevitable Apple Watch will soon introduce a sugar monitor as Tim Cook is known to wear prototypes and Apple has received regulatory approval. Oxygen levels will become hardware based as well rather than software as is now. And so many more the naked eye can't track and would previously require blood analysis. It's an interesting niche and aside from those more medically focused implementations many people will definitely benefit from the more basic guidance/reminders the devices offer.
And then there will be the insurance companies buying the data, as well as big pharma :)
Apple is not an advertising company nor data reseller. ;)
Besides the function of that tool is to send people to ER before someone hopefully discovers them needing an ambulance. No week passes or an Apple covering sites finds another person in regional media who was "saved" thanks to their watch and got away with early stage surgery rather than who knows what.
I wouldn't trust Google or Amazon with that data tho.
Oh and for sure, there is definitely a push toward being controlled in this way - but then for the last 50 years, there has been a push to not pay attention to reality and instead, listen to how we feel. Feelings are generally not a very good indicator of reality, as they can be based on fantasy that feels very real :)
And for the last 2000 years we have been told to contain those emotions and to make our decisions with our ratio (the celibate for example), which didn't always got the nicest results either.
The feeling brain is the one in the driver's seat if you ask me, while the thinking brain is next to us giving guidence. Nevertheless human beings like to follow their emotions since it's the easy thing to do. Nobody is able to alays do the right thing, because that's simply put not how our minds work. In the mid 20th-century we tried to delete the feeling brain by lobotomizing people, but they simply became ghosts. We need a balance between the two, but in the first place we need to understand that we act because of what we feel 95% of the time. Only by reflecting on it, and allowing the ratio to tell us otherwise we can fight the urge of following the easy path our feeling brain offers us. Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman is a great book about this topic by the way.
Feelings are my reality, but I try every day to be extremely aware how tricky they tend to be. They form my ego which tells me i'm right when I have a discussion with my girlfriend, that recollects all the instances where she did me wrong so I can add some extra arguments to the discussion, it tells me that my girlfriend should be the one to come to me to make ammends because she started the fight etc. It's a slick **** sometimes. And I FEEL all thse things. That's what makes it even worse. And then I need to go back to my thinking brain and put all these feeling to a different, more honest light. That's when I can see that I'm very often in the wrong and I'm being irrational. That's when I find the strenght to go to her and say i'm wrong. It's what makes me a better man. But it's damn hard.
If there's no data offered which interests you, then of course the topic ends right there. :)
Personally I'm like abh12345 and don't need the watch for the 24/7 tracking to improve my laziness. But there's some data recording I find value in, I suck at chores like regularly taking my pulse.
except to the tools of the flesh :D
I came very close to getting this instead - as I don't worry that much. But it didn't track routes afaik, so I wanted something that had a gps, so I don't have to take my phone.
I think the self assessment factor can be important, as we tend to focus on much of the wrong things, what we enjoy rather than what we need. We are already skewed, the tools can give a pathway to bringing us back to the normal.
Or control our brain through radio waves...
The independence of a phone is a very strong selling point for the Amazfit. And while majority of my music is Spotify nowadays, 2GB space is plenty to last few workouts, just need to find those not DRM'ed mp3s again.
And indeed, the self assessment and features needed is most important. Unless you're prone to marketing and fashion. But then you're going to end up with the smoothest Pavlovian experience yet, AKA the Apple Watch. :D
I don't need music when I run or workout, but I don't mind a good podcast :)
Archive.org for the mp3 download it is for you then. Altho those "Pumping Iron" or BPM 150-170 playlists are enjoyable when... pumping iron.
Pretty much. I have mine set at 2000 Steps and 6 hours sleep - very low, and if I can't manage those then the watch is right to give me a kick up the arse.
Sounds like you've got a Limited Edition, most will only make you feel like Pavlov's dog when they buzz you.
:)
What I can't find is the switch to turn off the 'you've been sitting still for too long' notification, I can see that one getting annoying.
Hate it when that bugger interrupts me when I'm reading a comic.
Think i'll start using it as indicator to fill my glass.
Read faster :D
I do understand what you are saying and I actually have much the same view, but will play devil's advocate a little more.
Perhaps this is a good thing as it puts the numbers on the surface, instead of hidden away. The numbers of our lives are there, especially digitally. The large handful of data gatherers have digital avatars created for all of us, and they use those numbers - while we don't even know they exist.
Yes, then there will be the jobs, the kids, the pressures, the whatevers that arise - and before you know it, you look in the mirror and not like what you see, lose confidence in who you are perhaps.
We are already gamified, most of just don't pay attention to the metrics that matter, even to ourselves. Regardless of whether we track them or not, they tick along, or don't.
Interesting take on it. But what's the merit of knowing? Of course i'm not talking about preventive screenings for cancer or anything like that. People should have themselves screened preventively, even if they don't feel sick or unhealthy. But a young man like me, 26 years old and in good shape, why would I care about my heartrate or daily steps?
And that's perhaps the thing about our society today. We put way too much emphasis on the ticking, when we perhaps are better off without that clock in the first place. Of course you can call it ignorant, and I would agree, but I really feel sometimes ignorance is bliss. Especially when we're talking about trivial things like daily life.
Interesting topic to discuss. Good article Taraz!
Most people don't know about economics and finance either, how is that working out? The problem is, knowledge is power as it affects behavior, and when only a small fraction have the knowledge, they can affect the behavior of the masses.
Not necessarily. Not knowing doesn't mean one isn't influenced by something and when one knows that they are affected but don't know what is affecting them - that is a suffering. Again with the economy, people suffer not having enough and blame all kinds of things, yet - they don't actually know, if they did - they would change their behavior.
I see "knowing" as more than knowledge in the head, it is practical.
How do you know my statistics? :)
Total gamification of processes is what awaits us very soon. People who do not think about the essence of things, but simply “play” are very easy to manage.
I think for the large part, many of us are already gamified to a high degree through social media and if you consider that the tokenization has always been present through the collection of money, we have been conditioned for many generations. With the advent of blockchains and crypto, there is a new level of accounting practices though :)
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I'm absolutely affected by internet advertising. The more I see of something, even something I want or might normally be interested in, the angrier I get and the harder I avoid the company involved for a longer period of time XD
My Fortifox add-ons stop most ads though so I can avoid permanent anger ;D
Wait I'm supposed to want what everyone else wants? That's where I've been going wrong!
I have a Fitbit, actually wanted an Apple Watch but decided to buy four Charge 3s (the brat that wanted it the most doesn't even wear it now, but she wanted an Apple Watch too) and a Versa for everyone (self included) for Christmas instead. The friendly competition has been fun but as the watches need to be specifically and deliberately sync'd the boys forget more often than not and it isn't even a competition between me and JJ (he totally annihilates me in the weekly stats thing every time).
How's your watch been so far? :)