A new watch or my consent to dig myself in a hole

I spent this morning in controversy, doubting one of my latest free-will choices. I typically start my Sunday with a long-run. To manage expectations, long is rather subjective, indicating a longer distance than my previous two-week average. Still regardless of the distance mood is important and, in that context, preparation takes the form of a ritual. I methodically lay all my equipment on the couch, take the necessary Instagram picture, devour a slice of bread with honey and measure my weight.

The watch is the cornerstone of running; it is like the ID of a runner, hinting your level as a runner. If I could use an analogy, a state-of-the-art watch would function similarly to a gold card for a premium customer in a bank. So far, I owned a triathlon watch, which my friends bought me for my 29th birthday (5 years ago). Five years, in the technological timescale, is like two-decades in human terms. Nevertheless, I was absolutely satisfied with it. Very handy, large screen and surprisingly accurate. My watch had already proven itself under the most difficult circumstances, enduring cold, heat or salty water, severe hits on screen as well as numerous falls.

Besides practicality, my watch also had sentimental value. I didn’t really care to be recognized as or gain the status of an elite runner, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t even close. Admittedly, I could have potentially tricked a few people in believing so, however it was not top-of-mind. At this point, someone could argue that the incentive to switch was zero. Like plays, plot-twists also exist in real life. So, while I am typing these words my new watch has taken over my left wrist, expelling my older watch into a dark drawer of my desk.

So, why I did it? What more did it offer? Technology is a strange animal, restless that moves all the time at a pace faster than you can track. Technology seeds new needs and makes them magically emerge at the top of your list. Evidently, I had fall victim of this paradigm. What about my heart rate? I could have improved my training, if I tracked this, right? What about indoor exercising? In raining days, I was using the gym. Gym activity couldn’t be measured with my old watch. But, there was another need. A need that superseded all other, like the One Ring at the LoR.

Running has evolved. The uptake trajectory was very steep. Literally, everyone runs or has at least tried it. Socializing, while running? Of course! The running club was not closed, it was open and ready to embrace everyone. And then there it was. All of a sudden it was about the community. See how your friends are exercising, copy their routines, set challenges, monitor their activity, give them virtual medals. Data sharing became the backbone of running, and I followed along.

My new watch has a tone of new features. I use some of them maybe even utilizing others to some extent. Behind all these fancy features is data. Data is chartering from my hand to other territories; matched and reconciled with input from my phone, my laptop, my email, or even my headphones. Data are piling up, compared against other data and insights are produced and pushed back to me. My new watch warns me when I need to slow down or put some more effort into my training. My watch notifies me that my friend on Strava, that I share the same characteristics with, ran more this week. My watch is a smartwatch. All these could have never happened without my permission. I spent a considerable amount of time agreeing in T&Cs that I never truly read or understood.

So, there I was standing on my doorstep, looking at my watch and feeling a hypocrite. It was me arguing the importance of data privacy, supporting strict regulatory interventions to protect our personal lives against getting exposed to the public. Before I know it, I had built myself an ecosystem of devices that track my every step, habit, location and conversation. I had dug my own hole and it was a rather deep one. It was me thinking twice before posting on social networks. I bet (or better hope) it wasn’t just me. But then again, it was also me advocating IoT, linking devices in an effort to feel connected. As things progress, we are confronted with a dilemma. Do we safeguard our data or share them in exchange for insights?

Every nice story ends with a conclusion, a suggestion or a verdict. The verdict, or at least from my perspective, is that there is no silver bullet. People always complain about their data being exposed, yet we always want to be more and more connected. We purposely put ourselves in the hole. The same hole I am in at the moment. In this hole, I would say regulation can act as a stairway. The pessimistic side of me understands that systems’ labyrinth-ial nature makes it challenging for regulation to be fully effective. We have identified the issue and are trying to tackle it. Another downside with regulation is that it always comes second. In the race, technology will always run faster.

My hope for the future is to come up with a delete-all-digital-footprint button, while continue seizing the advantages of interconnectivity. Wishful thinking? Maybe.

Related posts:

Over the past year I have been working with the Drupal Admin UI & JS Modernization Initiative to improve the administrative interface and user experience for content editors. One of the enhancements…

Pada era globalisasi saat ini dimana kita hidup di masa Ilmu Pengetahuan dan Teknologi (IPTEK) mengalami perkembangan yang sangat pesat. Dalam era teknologi yang terus berkembang, pengguna gadget…

Is it about pure performance? How much do other people’s opinions on your effectiveness matter? Or is it just a gut feel thing on whether you’re doing well or not? Perhaps some combination of the…