The iWatch is scheduled for April of 2015.
Bullshit.
I got a Fitbit band for Christmas, and I like it. Some fun features and I wear it all the time.
But from the point of view of behavior change, which is what really matters, the fitness band thing is more like giving someone a lump of coal.
No one has a bigger LED fetish than I do, but let’s be clear: only a fool would believe that a gadget, electronic or otherwise, will make an important difference in fitness or health.
The idea of the fitness device is that more information will allow people to do a better job of improving their health.
Nice thought, but there’s just a ton of solid research to show that getting more information doesn’t help people in changing their behaviors.
People generally have all the information they need to know that their habits are bad.
The problem isn’t that people don’t realize they should change their behaviors, it’s that they don’t know how to change them.
Research shows that individuals need lots of help to improve their diet, lose weight, and exercise more, and that it’s interactions with other humans that matter most in this process.
The evidence is in. And, sadly for all us tech types, it says that no number of blinking LEDs will make an important difference in health.
With the iWatch and its fitness fantasies, Americans, already world-renowned for sloth and obesity, are deluding themselves again.
