De-Instagramification it amuses me to read about how Instagram and YouTube are addictive today, when the opposite is true. Imagine, you live alone. You’re in the middle of a pandemic. Your only social exchange is at a petrol station when buying a coke or similar. You exchange three sentences and then you go back to abject solitude.
Now, imagine that at the same time as you deal with abject solitude you see social media pivoting from being about your friends and family, to people living a better, more social, more fulfilled life than you.
The US has a culture of streaking. I don’t mean running around naked at events. I mean of trying to do something daily for weeks, months or even years. As great as it can be, to develop consistent habits I believe that it can have a negative impact.
For months I wanted to get my daily streak of Duolingo, and eventually I got mentally tired and gave up, after 270 or more days in a row.
The Apple Fitness App now has Training Load data. It looks at the workouts you have done over the last 7 days and compares it to the last 28 days. In theory this is interesting but in practice I find it frustrating.
To be specific about what I find frustrating, the Apple watch has more than 1900 workout days to gather data from. Training Today and Gentler Streak both measure HRV and assess whether I am overdoing it, within the zone or slacking off.
In three days I will have closed the activity on an Apple Watch 1750 times. I have a love hate relationship with the device. That Love/hate relationship started when I broke the screen on my Series three watch when climbing but continued on when I got into the habit of allowing the move goal to be raised every single week. In the end I was walking four hours per day, every day, during lockdown, to fill the rings.