Recently I bought a Fitbit. I’m not a fitness fanatic. On the contrary, I spend most of my time doing what I’m doing now: sitting at the computer. But I go for walks, sometimes long, and I like to know how much I actually walked. I climb stairs quite often: how often? I don’t sleep very well: how many times do I wake up at night? How’s my old heart doing? Stuff like that. The thing works well, it somewhat motivates me to be more active (but not as much as it would want to: I can set goals for just about anything, and when I reach it, the thing vibrates and smiles at me), and it gives me interesting feedback. Sometimes I walk for 2 km at home, which is not exactly a caste, although it has stairs, which I climb up to 20 times a day. My heart seems to be doing ok, I wake up often at night, and my sleep pattern is not very good.
But there is one aspect of my Fitbit which leaves me deeply dissatisfied. The thing has GPS, 3-axis accelerometers, 3-axis gyroscope, digital compass, optical heart rate monitor, altimeter and ambient light sensor. With all these inputs, it could track a million activities: house chores, gardening, dancing, sex, cleaning the attic, playing musical instruments or videogames, ironing, etc. It could really be a life monitor, with a lot of useful informations: did I dance harder than last week? How long did I play Call of Duty last month? How’s my piano playing going? How many calories did I burn while cleaning the toilet? How many hours did I spend washing dishes in 2015? And how many orgasms did I have?