JUNE 8 2019 LISTENER 17
Swati Vadgaonkar
Lupton, of the University of New South
Wales’ Social Policy Research Centre, is one
of the world’s leading investigators into the
effects of fitness trackers – and their poten-
tial for misuse. She told the Listener that even
if she did want to start measuring herself
now, she would not because of concerns
about data privacy.
“We can see this ‘function creep’, say, with
life insurance companies. What started off as
people doing it for themselves because they
wanted to improve their health, fitness and
sleep is now moving into domains where
third parties have an interest in your data,
whether it’s for such things as insurance or
just making money out of you by selling
your data to others or exploiting it to target
advertising. That’s expanded exponentially
in the past few years.”
Even anonymised data can become iden-
tifiable if different data sets are linked, she
says.
In April, Lupton was the keynote speaker
at the World Congress of Sociology of Sport,
in Dunedin, where she outlined the pros
and cons of fitness trackers. For users, pros
included better knowledge and awareness
of their bodies, a feeling of being more in
control, improved fitness, performance,
confidence, health and well-being, fewer
visits to the doctor and better social con-
nection and motivation. Cons included
information overload, poor device design,
loss of face-to-face support and expertise,
breaches of data privacy and security and an
over-reliance on self-help and self-responsi-
bility. She says people give up on wearables
if goals feel unachievable, reminders become
annoying or they lack social support.
Some of the most enthusiastic users of
fitness trackers such as Fitbits are middle-
aged and older women, probably because
walking is their preferred form of exercise
rather than activities such as cycling, says
Lupton, “which seems to be a middle-aged
man thing”. In Australia, about one in five
adults owns a smartwatch or fitness band.
But her research has found women are often
frustrated by the design of apps or devices
that don’t cater for their needs.
“Women with babies and young children
say that before they had children they were
using their Fitbit actively and enjoying it.
But as soon as they had a baby, they didn’t
want a fitness tracker. The app was nagging
them to take steps they didn’t have the time
or energy to take. It was guilt-inducing. They
knew they had terrible sleep and they didn’t
need their tracker to tell them that. Theywished there was a function you could put
into it to say “I’m pregnant” or “I’ve just had
a baby”, so the device would stop nagging
them based on these pre-established goals
and norms that your Silicon Valley dudes
have programmed in because they are not
thinking about using this device in those
situations.”“INVISIBLE LABOUR”
Many devices also fail to measure “invis-
ible labour”, and this seemed to particularly
apply to women – for example, because of
the way steps are counted, using algorithms
that include arm movement, trips around
the supermarket pushing a trolley or walk-
ing the baby in a pram often aren’t detected.
Lupton says some teachers are now using
heart-rate monitors and fitness trackers on
students in phys-ed classes, “to encour-
age them to run faster or see which childin your class is putting in a bit more effort
and not hiding behind the toilet blocks.
Teachers think it’s a great way to motivate
and encourage students and keep an eye
on them, but when we asked them if they
ever thought about data privacy on behalf
of their students, they hadn’t.”
University of Pennsylvania researcher Dr
Mitesh Patel, an expert in how wearable
devices and smartphones can be harnessed
to change patient and doctor behaviour,
and who’s worked with Vitality developers
in the past, is generally enthusiastic about
their potential, but told the Listener that
devices will often fail if used in isolation.
Schemes such as the insurance incentives
may change that.
“Now, there’s a mechanism to give them
to people who have higher risk – who might
be diabetic or need to lose weight – and com-
bine a financial incentive for behavioural
change. It’s definitely a step in the right
direction.” But the problem remains that
those who need the devices the most aren’t
the ones who are using them. Without otherGE
TT
Y
IM
AG
EShusband about
two years ago.
“I’d done the
Auckland Half
Marathon the
previous year, but
I wasn’t fit. It was
to motivate me
to get fitter. And
it has. My doctor
was going to
prescribe blood-
pressure tablets,
but I told him,
‘No, I will control
every thing I do
and come back
to you.’ After six
months, I didn’t
have to. Because
I sit at my desk a
lot in my job, the
Fitbit reminds me
to get up when
I’ve been sitting
too long and that
I have 10 minutes
to achieve that
hour’s step goal. I
also use the calm-
ing app, which
tells me how to
breathe when I’m
stressed.” She’s
set a daily step
target of 8000
(about 6km) and
achieves it four or
five times a week,
with longer walks
on weekends. “I
was definitely less
healthy before
and less moti-
vated to move.
When I’m driving
home and stuck
in traffic and it
tells me I need to
do another 100
steps, it reminds
me I must go for a
walk in the even-
ing. It adds to my
guilt, but I don’t
find it stress-
ful. It’s between
the tracker and
me, and it stops
me having
another piece of
chocolate.”“Teachers think it’s a
great way to motivate
and encourage students,but when we asked them
if they ever thoughtabout students’ data
privacy, they hadn’t.”