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It’s more than user data ~ although, obviously, having wearable smart tech that can literally track your every heartbeat and step taken certainly won’t hurt their ability to directly monitor and market to you.
It’s also that they want to “partner” with health insurance companies to “better serve” you. Or, perhaps, to assign you a “health score” that determines what types of services you receive and coverage you are entitled to.
I really enjoyed the data and motivation I used to get from my Jawbone “Up” band, but they left the market after only a few years to make non-commercial medical devices. I grudgingly moved over to FitBit for a short time after that, but as is often the case, the “market winner” turned out to be an inferior product, and I stopped using it a few years ago, about the same time I got off all social media sites and started keeping my cell phone in a faraday case at night. It’s just downright creepy how often out every move is being watched ~ and leveraged against us.
Doesn’t one need to use social media in order to promote their work? What’s the significance of a Faraday case?
No you do not need social media to use a FitBit. You can use it as a standalone product if you just want the pedometer and heart rate data for working out, or you can download their app on your phone to monitor those things plus sleep schedules, calories and diet, menstrual cycles, and other critical bodily health data. It’s good info to have ~ except you’re not the only one watching.
Which brings up the faraday case. We turn off cell phones and encase them before bed each night to minimize being spied on in our homes. That way they aren’t listening, watching, and recording data. We also cover the front-facing “selfie camera”. I’d love to get rid of them altogether, but we both need them for our jobs.
This is identical to the Halo bracelet in the Canadian show Continuum that led to a corporate congress and total control by corporations. Currency in the dystopian future were called something like life credits and if you opposed anything you were lobotomized and turned into a robot in a factory. Far fetched? Not at all. Great show to watch if you want to see where things will end up for us.