Intelligent health technologies has its limits

Adam Cohen

“Move!”

A sustained buzz and an angry vibration accompanied the command from my check out, as if an military of compact but not notably qualified bugs was hoping to sting me.

At that instant, I was driving west on the Turner Turnpike. Until I needed to pull over to appease my battery-driven liege, its directive would go unheeded.

In my defense, it wasn’t just as if I’d invested my day sofa-potatoing. I was returning from Jenks, in which, much less than an hour right before, I’d concluded a 50 %-marathon.

A watch with "smart" technology that tracks physical activity.

Welcome to the age of clever technologies. Or, I ought to say, “smart” technological innovation.

When initially formulated, these types of devices have been heralded as opportunity daily life changers. Smartwatches, proclaimed a 2013 New York Times write-up predicting “disruptions” coming in the subsequent calendar year, “will make it a lot easier to watch our wellness with heartbeat and movement sensors, recording day by day how a lot we have exercised, or how much we have not.”