When I first got my Fitbit, I wanted to reach the 10,000-step goal every day. Not just 9,999 – I had to get the 10,000. Fitbit awarded me with fireworks when I hit that goal. It’s like the gold star you got on your papers when you were a kid.
My obsession with reaching the daily step goal led to bizarre behaviors like walking around the house 15 times at 11:30 PM to hit that 10,000. One New Year’s Eve, I left a party to walk around the block in 20-degree weather to make the goal. I barely made it back for the countdown.
It’s funny how you can get hooked on the fireworks and the goals. In his book Calypso, David Sedaris notes how “it can become addictive. If you’ve done 12,000 steps, maybe you should round it out to 15,000.” One woman became so obsessed with reaching 100,000 steps that she walks around her coffee table 13 hours a day. (1) At least I’m not that bad.
Fitbit knows how to feed the addiction. Not only did I get fireworks for 10,000 steps, but after a few weeks, Fitbit started sending me badges. Badges for steps per day, starting at 5,000 steps all the way up to 100,000 (or 50-53 miles). You also get badges for the total steps in your Fitbit timeline. You travel the world starting with a badge for London (250 miles), the Serengeti (500 miles), Italy (736 miles), and finally Pole to Pole (12,430 miles).
Fitbit says one of my bests was climbing 25 floors in a day. That’s got to be wrong. I’m sure I would have been shrieking with pain on the landing after 5 floors. Maybe Fitbit got confused when I took an elevator. But that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?
Cheating? Would I cheat? You bet! My Fitbit pulses my wrist 10 minutes before the hour if I haven’t taken 250 steps that hour. I found out that moving my arm up and down, like doing a one-armed, sitting jumping jack, would count as a step. I would do those one-armed jumping jacks when I was busy and couldn’t do the steps. One day at an outdoor burger joint a kid asked me why I was moving my arm up and down. I told her I needed 20 more steps that hour and moving my arm like that tricked the Fitbit into thinking I was taking steps. The kid accepted the explanation but her mother started lecturing me, “That’s cheating! You know you aren’t getting the health benefit by moving your arm.”
Actually, I don’t think my heart is going to atrophy because I missed 20 steps that hour. And isn’t waving my arm in the air some kind of exercise? And what business was it of her’s anyway? Someone ½ my age acting so sanctimonious. Let’s see if she makes it to my age. I’m eating a veggie burger and fruit – she’s eating wings and fries with a beer. Did I lecture her?
I know I’m cheating. Duh! I should have gotten up and walked the 20 steps around her table.
I was almost ½ way to the Pole to Pole badge when hubby gave me an Apple Watch for Christmas. Now I have to start my world trip all over again. He got me the watch because I had fallen twice, breaking a wrist each fall. On the second fall, I was walking by the side of the road, tripped, and fell partially into the road. Passersby didn’t even ask if I needed help. Hubby was worried.
The watch will notify EMTs if it detects you’ve fallen. A great idea, except it frequently sends me false alarms. I must make a lot of quick movements because the watch constantly asks “I detect you might have fallen. Have you fallen? If you don’t answer in 10…9…8… seconds I’m calling the EMT.” Since my watch is always beeping me with notifications that I ignore, I usually don’t notice the alert until 2 seconds before the countdown ends. I’m hoping it gives an audible to get my attention before it calls 911. (By the way, I’m not doing one-armed jumping jacks anymore. Apple knows that’s cheating).
Watches aren’t the only device that tracks your activities and gives you gold stars. My eBook reading app (Kindle) emails me congrats when I’ve reached a new goal, “You did it! You earned the Gold Reader during the Kindle Challenge!”
But unlike my watch, the Kindle app doesn’t buzz me if I’m about to miss a goal. On February 5, 2023, I accidentally broke a 435-day reading streak. Had I been warned, I would have at least opened the app and read a few pages (or would that be cheating again?).
Rewards can backfire. In one potty training method the parent gives the child an M&M each time she sits on the potty; more if she performs. It doesn’t take a genius to see that can backfire right away. Toddlers rush to the potty every few minutes to score more candy (2) One father reported his daughter trained herself to urinate and defecate a little bit at a time.
The Horizon Education Center notes that rewards such as M&Ms can confuse the message. The child’s desire to obtain the reward can become so great that it obscures the goal. Rewards shouldn’t upstage the main event.
Have the Fitbit, Apple, and Kindle rewards become my main event? When David Sedaris’ Fitbit broke, he said, “I initially felt a great sense of freedom. “It seemed like my life was now my own again. But was it? Walking twenty-five miles, or even running up the stairs and back, suddenly seemed pointless, since without the steps being counted and registered, what use were they?”
Maybe I should heed the Horizon Education Center’s advice and not make the rewards the main event. But it’s awfully hard to ignore the siren’s call of the fireworks or the pulsing reminders to stand up and walk.
Gotta go – my watch said I have to stand up.
References
Dr. Phil, I Am Obsessed With Taking 100,000 Steps A Day, YouTube.com, January 9, 2020
David Smith, Are Potty Training Rewards Good or Bad?, Horizon Education Center, April 16, 2014
I can relate to this, Sue. I’m totally addicted to my Fitbit! I hope you and Dave are doing well!