She wears a Fitbit, and so do I. I used to wear an Amazfit 5 Band, but then sequential research studies offered me free Fitbits to participate and I said yes (with the second study, I offered to just link my existing Fitbit for them, but they apparently found it procedurally easier to just give me a new one -- so now I should be in Fitbits for several years).
Anyway, wearing a "fitness tracker" -- not just a step counter, but a device that follows your heart rate, blood oxyen, sleep patterns, etc., and syncs with a phone app -- is well on its way to becoming a norm (a quick Bing search says that 21% of Americans wear one), and presumably these devices are going to continue getting less expensive to produce.
I predict that at some point, "health insurance" companies will begin offering, and later requiring or all but requiring wearing of, "free" fitness trackers to the "insured."
It will start off as one of those "aren't we great, free stuff!" things, and then eventually move on to you finding out that if you don't average at least x steps a day, etc., your co-pays go up.
Does anyone disagree (if you think you might, consider that car insurance companies are already on a similar track)?
I happen to like a fitness tracker, and I don't mind sharing the data mine collects with researchers (especially since they pay me in addition to providing pretty nice devices). But I may start looking around for the most privacy-centric fitness tracker to use when I'm not participating in a research study.
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