If I Had a Smartwatch, Would I be Productive Enough to Finish This Article?
Looking into how the Apple Watch can improve our everyday life.
Over the last few years, the Apple Watch has gone from a glorified pedometer to a full-blown hub for monitoring personal health. Apple is just one of the many tech companies branching into the fast-growing wearable technology market. But as new products emerge, so do new controversies. On the one hand, wearable devices keep users constantly updated on their health and wellness, and notify them when something might need to be looked into by a doctor. Nevertheless, there’s worry that these devices will cause users who misread their watch’s data, or have a malfunctioning device, to panic, leading them to seek medical help when they don’t actually need it. Despite these concerns wearables are here to stay — market analytics agency CCS Insight forecasts the wearables industry to be worth $34 billion by 2020. Wearable tech, whatever the doubts may be, boosts productivity and promotes healthy living. It’s more than a fashion statement; it’s the next step in lifestyle enhancement.
It’s no secret that physical activity improves cognitive ability, so it would make sense that a device designed to help regulate your exercise patterns would make you more productive. The watch tells you when you’ve been sitting in place for too long, allows you to add to your to-do list just with your voice, and even offers apps that offer time management suggestions. Not to mention, the newest version of the Apple Watch, the fifth, comes with a slew of features that were previously only available on the iPhone, like Voice Memos, Calculator, and others. The AW5 even gives users access to the App Store, meaning they no longer have to add new apps with their phones. Have a question? Ask Siri. Need to send a message? Just say it aloud. Want to listen to some music? It can do that too, no need to go running for your phone. The average person checks their phone about 110 times a day. When used effectively, the Apple Watch turns that number to zero. It can do everything your phone can but more instantaneously, and provides less distraction. The watch is becoming more and more of an independent device, instead of needing to be used in concert with another.
Wearable tech brings us closer to tracking and maintaining our health. As of 2018, Apple “has essentially gotten out ahead of where medicine is,” says Greg Marcus, cardiac electrophysiologist and chief of cardiology research at the University of California in San Francisco. The advancement Marcus is talking about is the watch’s ability to take an electrocardiogram (ECG) to test for signs of the irregular heart rhythm known as atrial fibrillation, or Afib. In the United States alone, there are 6 million diagnoses of Afib, and “conservative estimates” put undiagnosed cases at around 700,000. Before this feature was released to the public, patients had to visit a doctor to record an ECG, so this is a huge step forward in the medical industry. In other words, patients no longer have to make the trip, and in the case of some countries, pay the cost of having the test done. The debate, however, is that the watch will lead to a surge of users visiting hospitals as a result of false readings. Fortunately for hospitals, tests of the Apple Watch’s sensors have proven them 98.3 percent accurate at detecting Afib. What’s more, the watch was 99.6 percent accurate at recognizing a normal heart rhythm — meaning a misdiagnosis is highly unlikely. Of course, an individual’s health is their responsibility. Even so, it’s important for users to make sure they’re informed about what treatments are best if their watch finds any reason for concern. But the first step in treatment is knowing there’s a cause for concern. Perhaps a few people will show up at hospitals looking for treatment they don’t need, but turning away a few people who don’t need help is a welcome cost for notifying those who may really need closer attention about their condition. This is one of many ways wearables improve quality of life for users. “It’s clear they’re trying to democratize access to managing your own health, whether it’s by monitoring your biometrics, your activity, your menstrual cycle, your hearing health, or whatever,” says Mitesh Patel, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who studying how wearable devices can facilitate improvements in health. The watch allows users to — pardon the pun — keep their fingers on the pulse of their day to day health themselves, instead of relying on doctors or trainers to monitor it for them.
Smartwatches and fitness tracker sales continue to climb, and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. They give users access to personal health information in a way that’s never been possible, and streamline our experience with the technology we use in our day to day lives. Proven powerful enough to replace both iPhones and electrocardiogram machines, the potential of these little gadgets seems to be limitless. What more could the future have in store? There’s no doubt in my mind that the Apple Watch and gadgets like it improve the productivity of day to day life and overall health.
