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Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

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Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#21

Post by Jtsummers »

glibgil wrote: post #11
protomyth wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking the receiving end. I would expect a sense of relief in the person doing the breaking and not the lingering effects.

Um, did you see the guy's photo? I'm going to guess no one breaks up with that guy unless he does the old trick of acting like a jerk until the other person wants out.

Plenty of people that are attractive and good (or at least non-jerks) that get broken up with. They don't necessarily have to be a jerk, just not a good match for their partner. Politics, views on marriage, mismatched libido, kids, etc.

Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#22

Post by zitterbewegung »

pc86 wrote: post #16
funkysquid wrote: post #8

This is fascinating (and sad), but it makes me wonder, could police use your fitness tracker as a sort of poor-mans polygraph? i.e. interview a subject normally, and then get a warrant (or not get a warrant) to view the online data and correlate them after the fact? Wikipedia mentions "blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity" as parameters for a polygraph [1], and while fitbit only supports 2/4 righ…

I think it's pretty widely accepted that they don't work as a "is this person telling the truth about _____" They're fine if you don't mind false positives (true statements flagged as dishonesty). This is largely why they're still in use e.g. for hiring with the CIA. It's much better to filter out many otherwise fine candidates than it is to let someone in who would lie at that point in the interview.

If I recall correctly also if you can believe that you can beat the polygraph then it won't work on you.

Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#23

Post by Analemma_ »

funkysquid wrote: post #8

This is fascinating (and sad), but it makes me wonder, could police use your fitness tracker as a sort of poor-mans polygraph? i.e. interview a subject normally, and then get a warrant (or not get a warrant) to view the online data and correlate them after the fact? Wikipedia mentions "blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity" as parameters for a polygraph [1], and while fitbit only supports 2/4 righ…

I can sort of see that as a concern, but... why on earth would you wear your Fitbit to a police interview? If I ever got hauled in for questioning by the cops, then guilty or innocent I would definitely not be wearing something that tracks my heart rate!

In any case, I don't think this would be admissible evidence. As far as admissible evidence, polygraphs are only just scraping by on the skin of their teeth, and wearable devices don't come close to their level of accuracy/depth. The main reason these devices can be sold with none of the regulation that accompanies "real" medical equipment is that the companies state up front that "to be used for general fitness only, not intended for use to treat any particular disease", etc., and their accuracy reflects that. The heart rate measurements of Fitbits and other wearables aren't awful, but they're sufficiently inaccurate that any decent lawyer should be able to get that thrown out without question. Edit: Not to mention JTsummers' point about there being no baseline/control measurement on this data, if it existed. Definitely not admissible.

If you want something to be worried about vis-à-vis wearables and the privacy of health data, worry about your health insurer getting a hold of it and jacking up your premiums for not taking enough steps every day. That, to me, is the real worry here, not the cops.

Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#24

Post by protomyth »

state wrote: post #3

Perhaps if everyone tagged their breakup moments on their fitbits then fitbit could mass-process the preceding few months / weeks to find a common pattern. You show up a few minutes early to the restaurant and your fitbit can just let you know what's about to happen.

Corporate -> Customer Communication

  Dear Customer,

  We are sorry for improperly sending out the "Broken
  Heart" alert to you on January 21, 2023.  We should
  have sent you the "She's Pregnant" alert.  In the
  future, please ensure both you and your dating partners
  are running the same OS version.  Thank you for your
  understanding.

  sorry,
  FizzyBaneFitness

Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#25

Post by Jtsummers »

ihsw wrote: post #19
state wrote: post #3

Perhaps if everyone tagged their breakup moments on their fitbits then fitbit could mass-process the preceding few months / weeks to find a common pattern. You show up a few minutes early to the restaurant and your fitbit can just let you know what's about to happen.

That sounds like an excellent way to freak people out and preemptively break up.

Except it wouldn't work. If Fitbit is collecting my data, and I'm not intending a breakup, then my heart rate now is independent of what my partner will be doing or saying in five minutes when they break up with me. It'd only really be useful if it collected your partner's data and fed it to you.

However, you'll see similar spikes from your partner before any major relationship event. They want you to meet their family. They need to tell you they can't stand your mother and her overbearing nature. They want to move in together or propose. All these would likely look the same (modulo degree) to Fitbit.

Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#26

Post by overcast »

state wrote: post #3

Perhaps if everyone tagged their breakup moments on their fitbits then fitbit could mass-process the preceding few months / weeks to find a common pattern. You show up a few minutes early to the restaurant and your fitbit can just let you know what's about to happen.

I'll let in on a secret as to when a breakup is about to happen. Communication between the couple plummets, and is usually one sided, heavily weighted towards the side doing the breakup. Happens, every single time.

Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#27

Post by protomyth »

Jtsummers wrote: post #25
ihsw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like an excellent way to freak people out and preemptively break up.

Except it wouldn't work. If Fitbit is collecting my data, and I'm not intending a breakup, then my heart rate now is independent of what my partner will be doing or saying in five minutes when they break up with me. It'd only really be useful if it collected your partner's data and fed it to you. However, you'll see similar spikes from your partner before any major relationship event. They want you to meet their fami…

Given that these gadgets will probably all be location aware, I'm pretty sure the company[1] can figure out who you're dating and what stress they have. Basically, triggering your reaction to the breakup will probably get a search on what your former significant other was feeling and the data processing would probably happen from that end.

I really don't want to deal with that world.

1) both people need to be using the same device, but that's probably more common than not with peer groups. Lord help us all if they come up with a standard exchange protocol between devices. The alert "Hey, the dude entering the room now is really mad" is going to set off all kinds of hell.

Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#28

Post by alialkhatib »

It's always interesting to see qualitative stuff associated with quantified self; it seems like ultimately the goal is to lead a (happier|better) life, which is a very qualitative notion, but we end up turning as many things as possible into quantitative criteria and looking post hoc for some pattern.

Koby's tweet shows what a breakup looks like, and it's tragic, but if you imagined someone retrospectively posting a screenshot of their heart rate readings from the day they met their current partner, we might see a similar pattern of elevated readings as well, wouldn't we? It seems like it would be just as plausible (to me, anyway).

I'm not saying that we should find better dimensions to measure (I think we'll always find ambiguous, confusing results absent context), but that whatever we measure should get qualitative context if we want it to really mean anything.

Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#29

Post by alwaysdoit »

ihsw wrote: post #20
protomyth wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking the receiving end. I would expect a sense of relief in the person doing the breaking and not the lingering effects.

You'd be surprised how stressful it is to break up with someone. You don't want to lose a friend but it is in your best interests to do it.

Sure, but presumably there would be a pattern of rising stress levels leading to the event. This looks like a square wave, which indicates an instantaneous change from one state of stress to another, which would indicate he was the party receiving the bad news.

Re: Breakup, as captured by my fitbit

#30

Post by protomyth »

ihsw wrote: post #20
protomyth wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking the receiving end. I would expect a sense of relief in the person doing the breaking and not the lingering effects.

You'd be surprised how stressful it is to break up with someone. You don't want to lose a friend but it is in your best interests to do it.

> You'd be surprised how stressful it is to break up with someone.

I'm human and 45, I'm really not surprised, but I'll play the odds on who did what to whom.

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