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Wearables Don’t Make People Healthier, But They May in the Future
Health trackers could be valuable if they measured more data
Steps, calories, heart rate, blood pressure, sleep, menstrual cycle: Today there are all sorts of ways to measure, track, analyze, and judge your body’s functioning. According to a survey from earlier this year, 34% of adults reported using mobile health apps, primarily for monitoring heart rate and exercise; 27% said they use fitness wearables. And more of these products are coming down the pipe: Rumors that Apple may add a sleep-tracking app to the Apple Watch continue to spread, and the wearables industry is estimated to grow by 20% each year for the next half-decade.
“I have found in my research that people are really curious to know more about themselves,” says Jordan Etkin, PhD, an associate professor at Duke University who studies goals and motivation. “I think they do believe that through knowing about themselves, they can improve and become better and optimize.”
Despite the very real consumer interest, today’s tracking technologies often fall short. Some popular apps and devices have come under fire for accuracy issues. Class action lawsuits were filed in 2015 and 2016 against Fitbit, with customers claiming inaccuracies in heart rate monitoring and sleep tracking. Research has also shown that many activity trackers, including Garmin vivofit and Jawbone UP24, tend to underestimate how much energy users expend. In a 2018 scientific review of mobile health apps, researchers found that out of the thousands of existing health apps, only 22 had been systematically reviewed and “the body of evidence of effectiveness was of very low quality.”
“Changing human behavior is really hard.”
Beyond measurement issues — and privacy concerns — constant wellness monitoring can have other unintended drawbacks. Incessant tracking and measuring of activities like sleeping or walking can lead to a less pleasurable experience while performing these tasks, according to a 2016 study, since the pursuit feels like work. Sleep tracking apps have even resulted in a rise of user self-diagnosed sleep disorders, like insomnia, based on app data — and not based on how they actually felt based on the quality of…
