Another gadget again. Recently, since my birthday, I have owned a fitness watch. You don’t choose gifts. A fitness watch? I always thought that was nonsense. For digital tinsel on the wrist of people who want to know from a watch whether they have slept well and exercised enough. People who replace feelings with data. Now I wore such a watch on my wrist and had the corresponding app installed on my cell phone.
A little later I became interested in my resting heart rate. Fifty strikes, the clock told me after a few days of observation and analysis. Good or bad? It depends, the chatbot I trust told me. OK. Of course that was just the beginning. I now know not only my resting heart rate, but also all other facets of my heart rate. I’m now on a first-name basis with my daily step count, calorie consumption and sleep quality. Probably soon with my liver values on the third glass of wine.
“You have conquered the concrete jungle”
Looking at your cell phone has long been an automatic process beyond any control. Now there’s the clock. And what can I say: after less than a week I have made a career and reached a new sporting peak.
It’s called the “city shoe” and it lit up on my fitness app after the pedometer recorded exactly 16,544 steps between food stalls and pedestrian bridges at the end of a Thursday in Bangkok and the app then announced in white on black: “You have conquered the concrete jungle – with a step count almost three times the American national average!” Wow! Three times the American national average!
This text comes from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Doesn’t sound too bad of a read. Since then I have walked around the city differently. I don’t cross streets anymore, I collect meters. I take detours that I would have avoided before due to lack of time, only to be able to say casually later at dinner: “Over 15,000 again today.” Short break. Then: “America is significantly lower.” My fitness watch taught me that everything and anything is a number.
Every trip to the supermarket is a micro-triumph. Every elevator is a moral failure. Only lazy Americans do that. They can only get to the nearest 7 Eleven with their 5,000 steps, while the next time I’m in New York I’ll walk around Central Park twice with my fitness watch.
I have America in my pocket. Maybe I’ll tackle Africa now. I can already see it in white and black: “You have conquered a new continent – and with a step count that is almost four times as high as the East African national average!” Well, maybe it’s a bit overambitious. Let’s stay in America. I expect new push messages every day: “Congratulations, you’ve surpassed yourself.”
Until my birthday, I thought fitness watches were control tools. Today I know: They are guardians and career systems in their own right. Real-time promotions. Ascension through movement. I’m not just traveling anymore – I’m working on my statistics. And the morning message that whispers to me that I’m better today than I was yesterday. And possibly better than the entire Midwest. In short: Nothing works without my fitness watch.
