this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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"What are these health features that are so medically reliable on a smartwatch that becomes ewaste in 2 years?"
You act like half of these features don't need government approval. There are some minor features on my watch that I can't use because the FDA (the US' health authority) didn't authorize it. So yes, the data that decent smartwatches track is medically reliable enough for the FDA and other regulatory bodies to allow.
All you did was give cookie-cutter advice. If you want to speak strictly from a population perspective, fine. On an individual level, though, this is dogshit advice because it's devoid of nuance. Someone who works 2 or 3 jobs isn't going to have time to take care of themselves, let alone have time for 20 minutes of decent exercise. Someone who's a single parent working minimum wage will not cook a healthy meal for the family and will probably opt for fast food instead. Someone with broken legs can't run, walk, or play most sports and thus have fewer opportunities to exercise. People with mental conditions like Autism and ADHD will hyperfocus on some Wikipedia rabbithole for hours and miss their exercise timeslot without realizing it. Stressed office workers and college students will be cramming or working overtime to meet quotas etc etc.
Literally all of those realistic and common scenarios involve major roadblocks that prevent people from "changing their lives." Each person needs their own solution, and for many people, smartwatches fit incredibly well into that solution. Sleep through alarms? Your watch can vibrate and wake you up. Anger issues? Your watch can tell you when you need to cool down with breathing exercises. Sitting too long because you're working? Your watch can tell you to take walking breaks. In your view, the alternative is probably to simply set a timer to take a walking break. In most people's views, however, the alternative is probably not taking a walking break because they don't even think about walking breaks.
Having tools to make healthy choices easier will inherently make it more likely to make healthy choices. If you think that everyone needs to follow your barebones advice instead of trying to actively use a smartwatch, then I want you to try the following:
Congratulations, you have a working laptop. Your coworker bought theirs from Best Buy and spent about 10 minutes, but they literally don't use all of it! You obviously did the better thing, and assuming you're most people, it only took 10 hours to build your first laptop! Hooray!
Now if that analogy didn't work because you already know a decent bit about PC building, then replace it with building a car, or building a bike, or literally anything that you don't already know. Regardless, having tools, whether knowledge based or tangible, makes building things easier, and smartwatches for many people are just tools for building healthier lives.
This is the neurophysiological advice I gave.
Firstly, you are the epitome of clowns if you think $500 smartwatch ewaste is helping anyone with those kinds of issues over serious neurological, physiological and psychological advice, which would be very close to what I gave, and NOT BUYING $500 TECH JUNK NOT FIT FOR PEOPLE WITH MEDICAL CONDITIONS. People with these conditions are the exception, and no such people will ever be told to even consider junk smartwatches. If my advice was "general" advice, so is yours. (Spoiler: its not, my advice is medically backed and atleast 50x more applicable than yours.)
People with physical disabilities usually have some form of gear or prosthetics to be able to move around unless there is complete paralysis. ADHD people are even riskier since smartwatches overload you with unnecessary statistics. Someone who works multiple jobs still has 20 minutes of free time to exercise and another 20 to get some sunshine, this is complete utter bullshit.
You know what is far superior to a watch with two millimetres thick vibration motor? Your ears being able to hear sound. Gentle Wakeup alarm app is made by a doctor, is based on lots of things like circadian rhythms, REM cycles, emulating sunlight, emulating sounds of natural environments, serotonin levels, and I am using it since 2017. A smartwatch is doing none of that, and is not made by doctors, or can wake you up without breaking your REM cycles. I am sure you will bring examples of someone who is both deaf and blind, which will just make me ignore anything you say.
If you have anger management issues, therapy and meditation is a must, and smartwatch is not saving someone going around punching or stabbing people. Asylum exists for them.
Shit, did I forget some people can have allergy strapping rubber or clothing or metal on their wrists, since you are using that logic?
A smartwatch is not solving problems realistically, because it did not exist until very recently. It is a novelty luxury and a fashion gadget, not a tool for ANY person with ANY medical condition. A smartwatch is in no form or shape a necessity for any person, and far superior physical monitoring tools for strapping to body exist, that are medically backed and certified for relevant patients. Telling people with medical conditions to waste $500 every 2 years on ewaste is fucking [REDACTED], because that is what you are advocating, thinking your little pseudointellectual monologue is convincing.
Unless you reply anything substantial, medically backed and coherent, I will just ignore any of your dumbass ramblings.
You missed my point entirely. My point is that slapping on a $200 smartwatch is an easier solution for some people to improve their lives at least marginally
The only specific thing you suggested implementing is the app. You spoke nothing of motivators that actually help achieve most of the goals you spoke of. Smartwatches are one way of providing motivation by gamifying metrics like step counts and hours slept. The people I know who actively wear ones appreciate having a multipurpose pedometer on them at all times.
This is more likely a symptom of health anxiety rather than ADHD. Even if not, not everyone with ADHD gets anxious and overwhelmed by random statistics. You cannot gaslight me into thinking that my watch doesn't help me by telling me to walk around after, for example, spending an hour reading random news stories.
I'm not going to dismiss your app suggestion, but have you seriously never heard anyone of sleeping past their multiple alarms?
Yes, but in the same way that physical healthcare is inaccessible for many, mental healthcare is inaccessible. Finding therapists for a set of niche conditions is often time consuming, expensive, and mentally/emotionally draining. It takes experimentation to find a therapist that will click for a certain person. Using my insurance, it's literally cheaper to buy a smart watch every 2 weeks to 2 months than to visit a therapist at the recommended 2 weeks interval. You severely underestimate the cost of healthcare and overestimate the cost of "ewaste," and that's ignoring the time commitment of healthcare.
I am one of those people, and I still wear a smartwatch. If you apply the same logic to commonly prescribed medications (e.g. Adderall and dry mouth/insomnia; some asthma medications and suicidal thoughts), then you'd quickly realize that doctors do a cost-benefit analysis before giving a treatment and that your logic is wrong.
I don't remember ever saying it was a necessity. I said it was a tool. A Swiss army knife is never going to replace a drill because they serve different functions. If you don't know how to use either, then you shouldn't use either without learning first. I don't see how a smart watch is different in that regard.