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A number of doctors aren't so sure about the benefits of wearables eithers. A recent MIT Technology Review story found doctors from a number of specialities unsure about what to do with the data many of their fitness-tracking patients are bringing them."Clinicians can't do a lot with the number of steps you've taken in a day," Neil Sehgal, a senior research scientist at UCSF Center for Digital Health Innovation said. Andrew Trister, an oncologist and researcher at Sage Bionetworks echoed this sentiment. "[Patients] come in with these very large Excel spreadsheets, with all this information," he said. "I have no idea what to do with that."
One of the short-term problems for trackers is that their [sic] not actually reliable enough to be medically useful. The sorts of measurements that devices cheap enough to be commercial products tend only to focus on vague metrics that could just as easily be inferred from a short interview or basic examination. While certain health trackers have shown promise—such as the small implants that manage insulin for diabetics—they can also produce a hyper-vigilance and paranoia, leading to a degenerative process of over-managing issues that a person's body is already handling.
Are there Soylentils that do use fitness trackers regularly? Do they help you manage your health?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by snick on Wednesday December 02 2015, @02:33PM
I used to track my exercise religiously, and had it all automagically going to a spreadsheet in the cloud that I could gloat over.
It wasn't useful for anything other than motivating me. Once I found a form of exercise that I liked to do for its own sake (not because it was good for me) I ditched the tracking and just enjoyed what I was doing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @03:01PM
I've used a Wii Fit meter (until it fell in the toilet!). I really enjoyed it. It tracked my steps, it measured altitude changes and related them to steps to tell when you were walking up stairs (and burning more calories) rather than just riding an escalator. Its primary use was as a motivator. You set a weight loss goal, it calculated how many calories per day you'd need to burn to meet that goal, then it tracked it for you. I can't speak to its accuracy, but it was a nice motivator. Plus, in true Nintendo style, they tied various rewards to meeting certain goals which added extra motivation in the same way as one obsessing over an Angry Birds level because they want to get three stars on it.