This article is featured in the Genome spring 2016 issue.
In the 2013 film Her, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) falls head over heels in love with his computer operating system. After meeting “her,” he never wants to be without her, and his life is changed forever. That’s how New Yorker Marian Rivman feels about her FitBit — the wearable activity tracker that counts her daily steps and the calories she burns and monitors her heart rate. After she’d had it for only one day, she was in love, she says. And since then, her life has certainly changed.
“I want to have a naturally occurring 10,000-step-a-day life,” says Rivman, a semi-retired public relations and marketing consultant who recently celebrated her 70th birthday. “Not that I just go out for a walk, but that I have a life that’s vigorous and active, and in the course of just living, I walk 10,000 steps.”
Ten thousand steps is about five miles, and it’s the generic daily goal that makers of the devices recommend for users. Since Rivman fastened the FitBit onto her wrist in June 2015, she’s met or surpassed that goal every day. She’s lost 12 pounds, and she thinks a little harder before she gives into the temptation of an indulgent snack. “I ask myself, ‘How many steps is that puppy going to cost me?’”
Rivman is among an estimated one in five Americans who owns an activity tracker, also called fitness bands or fitness trackers. Wearable devices — including trackers and smart watches, clothes, and glasses — are expected to comprise a $50 billion industry by 2018. At a time when obesity and sedentary lifestyles are linked to some of the leading causes of death, these little gizmos could be a boon to the nation’s health. But do blinking lights on a wristband light a sufficient flame to get people off the couch and walking five miles a day? For some people, yes. For others, definitely no.
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