Will a Biotracker Work For You?

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KEY POINTS

• Data only helps if translated into useful, actionable information
• Biotrackers don’t work for everyone but for most users, they improve accountability, motivation, and engagement
• Trackers are not one size fits all. Choosing the right approach to behavior change means figuring out what works best for you.

Are you sporting an Apple Watch, FitBit, Oura Ring, or other smart wearables? If so, you’re not alone. Many of us have been lured into the magical world of biotrackers and wearables by the promise that personal data will give us the ability to change our behavior and increase our health and wellbeing. But do they work? Are they actually good for us?

Using Data to Change Behavior

Biotrackers reflect our increasingly data-driven world combined with the age-old passion for self-improvement — now through self-knowledge gained by personal data.

The sophisticated biotrackers of 2022 have a long and illustrious history evolved from old-school manual tracking based on stopwatches, thermometers, and pen and paper to track our health, exercise, and diet logs. Now we have device-enabled automatic data collection-measuring ourselves and sometimes even others.