A step too far? How fitness trackers can take over our lives

Lewis is one of a substantial number of people who has embraced the idea of a "Quantified self", a term invented by former tech journalist Gary Wolf to describe people who measure themselves - their bodies, their behaviour - in pursuit of things like weight loss, better sleep, great fitness: "Self-knowledge through self-tracking" The movement was prompted by the emergence first of smartphones and then wearable tech - fitness trackers such as Fitbit, the Apple Watch, heart rate monitors and cycling computers A study last year found people on the scheme increased their activity by about 34%.

"It can have benefits It can help people be more mindful of what they're doing," says Dr Josie Perry, a sports psychologist "One of the reasons why people eventually give up on their fitness trackers is because they might have a question, but they don't necessarily get an answer if it's not baked into the technology from a commercial vendor" Is this data worth anything? Does it help a company to know how long it takes an employee to get round a warehouse if it doesn't also know about the bottles of urine, or how many customers cancel their Amazon accounts when they read about them, or how many politicians decide to attack the company's tax arrangements as a result? "So my fitness tracker has actually made me break my own money-saving rule" Lovely 20A sex tracker that measures how long a session lasted and how many calories were burned in the process. Source