The Multimedia Gentleman

This assignment has come up at a very opportune time. In my biomechanics class we’ve been asked to wear a fitbit this week. This is my first experience with quantified self, and I must say I’m intrigued by the idea of having quantitative information about myself. The fitbit works rather seamlessly, connecting wirelessly via bluetooth connection to my computer or smartphone. Not only that, but there is a small screen that gives me my numbers on steps taken, flights climbed and calories burned for the day. The data is constantly present. When it comes to exercise, I find it very difficult to be motivated or to set goals for myself, so having something that shows me when I’ve been highly inactive for a day and automatically sets daily goals for me seems like it would be very beneficial. As a movement, find it appealing because of its potential to revolutionize healthcare. It increases awareness of one’s own health, but can also allow doctors and physicians to monitor health on a large scale. If this kind of data is widely available, it can increase the ability of medical professionals to predict epidemics, understand how they spread, and perhaps draw connections to other factors like geographic location and culture.

I’m also interested in how this movement could promote men’s health. I participated in Movember this year, a campaign that asks men to grow mustaches and have people donate money to fund research in mens health issues. A secondary, but equally important goal, in my mind, is to encourage men to talk about their health. For what I see as primarily cultural issues, the men I know generally don’t talk about their health and avoid going to the doctor for regular checkups. I think the quantified self movement has the potential to change this, by associating health with technology and fun instead of weakness or infirmity. I’d be interested in studying whether or not quantifying increases the amount that men visit the doctor and discuss issues concerning their health.

Before I even finished reading the Economist article, I downloaded the Boozerlyzer app. I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but I’m highly interested in how alcohol affects my brain function, and I can definitely see myself running some experiments on the differences between whiskey and tequila. Considering this app brought to my attention my general interest in abnormal situations that I may experience. I’m excited to take a closer look at my fitbit data from this past thursday. One of my hobbies is swing dancing, which tends to be heavy in footwork. Following this logic, I should have logged a number of steps for that three hour period that is far above average for me. Of course, I’m also interested in the number of calories I typically burn in a night of dancing.

I’d also be interested in studying my mental health. For some time, I’ve been interested in the correlation between my mood and the music that I’m listening to. Last.fm is an application that monitors the artists and songs you listen to. Using this in conjunction with other tools could show me how much listening to reggae affects my stress levels, or if listening to metal makes me more productive when working out.

Recent studies have indicated that the province of Saskatchewan has the highest obesity rates in Canada. According to Canada.com, about 22 percent of the overall adult population is obese. A variety of factors have contributed to the rise of this epidemic within the region. Obesity rates are connected to more than diet and exercise, and in this province, a few of those factors are more common than elsewhere in Canada and the world as a whole.

Saskatchewan is one of the more densely populated regions in Canada and census data has shown that it has the second highest Aboriginal population in the country. Among Aboriginal populations in Canada, the obesity rates are as high as 37.8 percent in some communities. In recent years, increasing numbers of Aboriginals are choosing to live off-reserve, and obesity rates among those almost 10 percent higher than among those who stay on-reserve. According to the Canadian Forum for Policy Research, prevalence of obesity is an international trend seen among Aboriginal people in the United States, Pacific Islands, New Zealand and Australia. Michael Pollan has connected this trend to the adoption of a western diet that their bodies are not accustomed to.

Low socio-economic status is sometimes linked to obesity rates as well. Saskatchewan is one of the most affluent regions in the world, and the difference between the poor and the wealthy in the region seems to be reflected in the obesity epidemic. In the city of Regina, people of low socio-economic status are 12 percent more likely to be obese. Another factor that may contribute to the high obesity rates are Saskatchewan’s high rates of smoking. At 26 percent, the region has the highest smoking rates in the nation. A study by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that while light smokers may have lower body weight than most of the population, heavy smokers may have higher rates of obesity. Quitting smoking has also been shown to increase someone’s likelihood of being overweight. Considering the increasingly strict anti-smoking laws in Saskatchewan, this may be a significant factor in obesity rates.

Physical inactivity is, of course, still one of the biggest factors in obesity rates. A study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information supported this as an issue in Canada. In Saskatchewan, a more sedentary lifestyle may be related to the recent changes in the economy, which has shifted away from and agrarian and resource based economy to a services based one.

Canada has one of the highest obesity rates in the world, so considering that there is a direct correlation between the chances that a person will become obese and the number of obese people within their social networks, even higher local rates are to be expected.

Sources:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2011/06/20/obesity-physical-inactivity.html

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/87/4/801.full

http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/story.html?id=0c85b217-12ab-47cd-af3d-637bda2f5a1c

http://researchforum.ca/health/28-health/17-obesity-in-canadian-aboriginals-some-facts-and-figures

http://www.stats.gov.sk.ca/stats/pop/2006%20Census%20Aboriginal%20Peoples.pdf

http://www.ctvnews.ca/saskatchewan-p-e-i-report-highest-obesity-rates-1.659535

http://www.gov.sk.ca/Default.aspx?DN=8f48fa79-d320-48d8-bc6a-f414d4c59694

In Bodies and Buildings, I will be writing weekly posts this semester as responses to our readings. This is a response to Donella Meadows article: “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System.”

The introduction of mobile phones into our lives has increased the speed, constancy and ubiquity of information on a personal level and throughout our society. Mobile applications leverage these advances in various ways to achieve the goals of the people who create them. Leverage points 9, 8 and 7, as described in Meadows’ article are some of the places where mobile applications cause changes in systems we interact with.

One of the most common ways in which mobile applications affect leverage points is by decreasing the length of delays in communication and distribution of information. Before the creation of social media applications, social interaction required people to initiate communication via a phone call, text message, computer, or physical interaction. Now, information about our friends, acquaintances and family members is available by simply opening Facebook, Foursquare or Twitter. Of course, the news industry has been greatly affected by the ability of people to use mobile internet applications to report details about events as they occur. Instead of events being reported on with a twenty four hour delay for paper publications and shorter, but still significant delays for news websites, reporting is done immediately. In a struggle to keep up with online news resources, official news outlets have sped up their reporting, with largely negative effects. As discussed by Meadows, this extremely short delay often causes wild oscillations within the system of news distribution. The stock of that system is public opinion and the immediacy of data created by mobile access to the internet creates dramatic increases and decreases in the opinions of the public surrounding particular events. One important example is coverage of elections. During recent elections, the results have been reported as they come in, which sometimes leads to mis-reporting results to an attentive public.

The relationship between mobile applications and leverage point 8, “The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to impacts they are trying to correct against” is a more complex one. At this point, applications can’t physically stop users from doing anything. They don’t cut off your funds if you’re spending too much money or defend you from attackers. They can only provide information, so instead of cutting off your funds, they constantly monitor them, and keep you aware of how much money you’re spending and send you warnings if you’re going off budget. From my understanding, this is more aligned with leverage point 6, the structure of information flows. The ubiquity of recording devices though, can strengthen the negative feedback loops of the justice system. I’ve gotten in two car accidents in recent years that were not caused by me. Having mobile camera applications allowed me to easily record the other driver’s insurance and contact information, identity, the condition of both cars. Documentation of events like this can reduce occurrences of fraud or provide evidence for crimes.

The gain around positive feedback loops is leveraged by mobile applications like Pandora Radio and Foursquare. Pandora users benefit from interacting with the application as much as possible through the thumbs up, thumbs down system. When a user likes a song, they give it a thumbs up, and that radio station will now play more songs like that one, and vice versa when the user gives a song a thumbs-down. Foursquare allows the user to benefit even more from increased use, with an even simpler system. When users check into a location, they feed information into the system, which then allows Foursquare to provide more informed suggestions for other locations that the user may want to check into. As the user continues to check into more similar establishments, their gains increase, as they receive badges as rewards for their use of the system. More check-ins also means more points, increasing the user’s rank among their friends, and consistency pays off, since points are only allocated based on the past 7 days.