Why I threw away my Fitbit
Happy Sunday, Soothers. I had this thought while walking the other day:
The industrial revolution and capitalism have been, at their core, experiments in seeing if we could turn humans into robots.
Second thought: This is obviously working out really badly. Like, not for capitalism, it's going great for capitalism (and a few select humans). It's working out badly for humans.
Third thought: We have GOT to start rejecting this premise/experiment and return to the things and behaviors that make us inherently human.
Fourth thought: So why the fuck am I wearing a piece of technology on my wrist 24/7 that is tracking all of my data around movement and sleep so I can "optimize" my humanness, then?
Fifth thought: I need to get this thing off me. It's not helping me. It's pushing me to turn myself into an optimized robot and further splitting me from my intuition. Why do I need a watch to tell me if I slept well or not, anyways? I should KNOW if I slept well or not, or if I walked enough so that my body felt good.
From there, it was on. The Fitbit was off, marked for e-recycling, and I was just a little bit freer.
Where are we becoming more robot than human?
Where have we utilized technology, believing it will help improve us, when it only separates us from the messy, chaotic, alive experience it is to be a human in a world?
To know and trust our own experiences and intuition instead of handing it off to a set of data on a screen?
At the root of this as we all know is the exploitative aims of capitalism, and the efforts of the industrial revolution to mass-scale and globalize output of humans. Tools we've been told would help our health or well-being have, at their core, I think a desire to turn us into optimized robots, further and further from our natural roots and our humanity, but able (or feeling like we should be able) to produce more and more and work more and more, and absolutely over-dependent on and reliant on technology.
The Fitbit tracker is the least of our problems. Here are some other examples of how we've been separated from humanity in service of what seems like evolution or efficiency — in short, where systems are trying to turn us into robots:
The majority of light we see these days is artificial: We've been taught to fear the sun, when evolutionarily we have lived under it, just fine, for hundreds of thousands of years. Instead, we're encouraged to stare into blue screens and LED lights, at all times of day, even though it's been repeatedly proved that artificial light, especially at nighttime, is linked to an increase in cancers, strokes, obesity, mental health issues and a whole lot more. (I think the major issue with teens and mental health isn't necessarily the social media or the content — though, that can't help — it's what the blue light is doing to their hormones and circadian systems.)
We don't live under seasonal systems: Every day under capitalism, 24/7, 365, is expected to be the same. Wake up at the same time, have the same energy levels, eat the same things, go to bed at the same time, have the same moods. These systems have tried to impose an eternal blankness on what should be a rich and varied experience of living out a year in the world as a person. I SHOULD need to sleep more in the winter and have less energy. I SHOULDN'T be able to eat a mango in Virginia in January (that probably also had to travel an exploitative labor system to reach me). I SHOULD get tanner in the summer and produce more melanin and vitamin D.
We're separated from our food systems and the people who grow it: I mean, sometimes I DO want that mango in January. But who grew it? How did it get to me? What local farmers and food producers am I ignoring for the desire of something non-seasonal and non-local? What health impacts is it having on my body to eat something not grown at my latitude or longitude that ancestrally, my body is NOT used to having at this time of year? That doesn't grow naturally near me?
We're taught to fear nature: Not just the sun. I had a client I met at the park and when I sat us down on the ground to do some exercises, she was terrified of getting a bug and dirt on her. (I mean, I do get it.) We have no tolerance for cold exposure, for rain, for natural experiences of wildlife. Literally for the majority of our history as humans we lived exclusively outside, and now it freaks us out.
We trust technology over our intuition: This is where getting rid of your Fitbit or Apple Watch comes in. Look, when a goose decides to fly south or north, it's not consulting any technology. It's so in tune with its intuition and the signals from nature it simply KNOWS. We have this capacity too, promise. If you want increased intuition, self-trust and self-knowledge, consider tossing (or at least taking off for a few weeks) your Fitbit style watch. If believing or relying on a piece of technology over your own innate intuition and knowledge isn't a sign of evolving into a robot, I don't know what is.
So what do you do, if you want to cast aside this experiment on becoming more robot than human? Where do you start?
How do you start stepping back into your human-ness?
Aside from taking off the Fitbit for a few weeks and just instead relying on what you notice, feel, and observe about yourself, here are a few ideas:
Embrace inconvenience: I remember a few years ago I took a class with a person who was chronically ill. She had to reschedule classes often due to her health. The capitalist robot and able-ist in me wanted to complain and was irritated. The human in me remembered, if I wanted to support more small businesses owned by actual humans, this is what it looked like to do that.
Touch nature. Watch sunrise. Watch sunset. Lay on the grass. (When was the last time you laid on the grass?)
Have a wifi-free evening. Part of me thinks I'm turning into a conspiracy theorist, and part of me truly thinks that artificial blue light and EMFs will be the cigarettes of our generation in terms of health outcomes. At the very least, why not try turning off the wifi for your household for the night? Does it help you sleep better? What do you turn to when you don't have a phone or TV to watch?
Have an indoor light-free evening and try candle hour: After sunset, light a bunch of candles (or get battery-operated candles) and use them exclusively as your lights for the evening. Notice how this makes you feel, how it impacts your sleep, what kind of activities you're called to do. Better yet, combine this with the wifi-free night and notice what arises for you.
Catch sunrise and/or sunset, or even both in one day: I've been really good at seeing sunrise most days regularly, but not sunset. When I was in Sedona, the light was so beautiful and I had the time to catch both, so I had a couple of days where I bookended my time with a sunrise and sunset viewing. Something that would have been so common and easy to do not that long ago now seems so out of reach for us; try out catching one or the other at least once this week.
Make a farmers market meal: It's that time of year, the markets are hopping. Go meet a farmer, and commit to making one meal this week exclusively from something you get at the market. It could be as simple as local eggs and greens scrambled together, it doesn't have to be complicated or fancy or expensive.
Grow something that you can eat: Look, after I learned about these two twins who learned to homestead in their downtown apartment during COVID (like, they raised quails on their balcony to get their eggs and meat), there ain't NOBODY who can't tell me you can't do this kind of stuff in ANY location. Yes, you can grow a single food plant in your home. And then eat it. Start with herbs and go from there.
Go on a walk without your phone: It can just be a baby walk, like 10-20 minutes. Try it out and see how it feels. Yeah, maybe you'll be bored at first or your inner voice will be loud, but I bet it'll settle in no time.
Becoming more human and moving away from being less robot, honestly, isn't that hard to do (I mean, outside of the capitalism system stuff, which I know we're all trying to figure out).
What it does take is a willingness to commit to your humanity and to disconnect with intention from the ease or efficiency that technology and other systems provide us.
To say you can survive without technology (at least, the majority of the time. Nobody better try to take my Google Maps away from me).
To decide that optimization from technology that tells us how to perform and adjust does NOT actually know better than us about what we need or should do.
To be local, and invested in community.
To not judge yourself for when you have extremely natural and normal seasonal fluctuations (like being more tired in winter).
Don't robot yourself. A robot measures against an external outcome and berates itself when it doesn't live up to these arbitrary data points.
Human yourself. Embrace your messiness, your inconsistency, your emotions, your fluctuations. Your intuition and your deep yearning and desire for connection to the natural world, which I promise you, is still there.
That humanity is still in you, and while it might be a fighting battle every day to slow the transformation into an optimized robot, I believe we can do it.
Be brave enough to say goodbye to the Fitbit, and let yourself feel the freedom and liberation that comes with that.
More human. Less robot.
Feels good, doesn't it?