新型健康神器换个思路帮你改掉坏毛病

Fitness trackers–the Bluetooth-enabled bracelets and wearable devices that monitor things like a person’s heart rate, steps taken and calories burned–had a moment last year. Then everyone realized that knowing how many steps they’d taken each day wasn’t all that helpful. What do you do with that information? Reports surfaced that half of fitness tracking devices had become inactive; industry experts suggest that number is closer to 85%.

健康追踪器（也就是基于蓝牙技术的腕带和可穿戴设备，能监测人们的心率、行走步数和消耗的卡路里）去年着实热闹了一阵。然后所有人都意识到，光知道自己每天走了多少步其实没什么用。您会拿这些信息做什么用呢？一些研究报告发现，这类设备有半数最终都闲置了起来；业内专家则认为这个数字要接近85%。

The fitness tracker moment has passed. The next wave of connected devices is taking a different approach: Instead of incentivizing users to exercise or sleep or eat healthy, and rewarding them for it with virtual badges and digital high-fives, this new class of devices use shame, guilt, and in one case, a physical shock, to keep their owners in line.

健康追踪设备可谓大势己去。下一波互联设备则采取了全新的互动方式：它们不再鼓励用户去锻炼，也不是鼓励他们保持饮食和睡眠健康，同时用什么虚拟奖牌和数字化击掌致意来奖励他们；相反，这些全新设备用羞耻感、负罪感，以及某种情况下的物理震动来让用户守规矩。

Where first-generation fitness trackers offered the carrot, the latest class is offering the stick. Soon everything you own, from your chair, to your lighter, to your fork or belt, will be able to scold you.

如果说第一代健康追踪设备奉上的是胡萝卜，那最新一代设备挥舞的就是大棒了。很快，你所拥有的一切东西，从板凳到打火机，从叉子到皮带，都能把你骂上一顿。

Take Quitbit. It’s a “smart lighter,” which measures how much its owner smokes, in hopes that that information will motivate them to cut back on the habit. Its designers created the device after they tried to track their own smoking with Google Docs and iPhone notes. They realized they weren’t always proud of how much they smoked, and therefore weren’t motivated to continue recording the behavior. So they built a lighter that records the data for them. In addition to tracking the data, which founders Takuji Nakano and Ata Ghofrani say is proven to help smokers decrease their smoking, Quitbit can be programmed to only work a certain number of times each day. They’re careful not to push the guilt factor, since it takes time for smokers to come around to the idea of quitting. “We have to be really gentle with it and will continually ease them into it by making them more cognitive about how much they’re smoking,” Nakano says. “We want to empower them to just try to quit.” The Quitbit crossed its funding goal on Kickstarter and will be available for purchase later this year.

比如Quitbit，这是个“智能打火机”，它能测出用户抽了多少烟。它的设计意图是希望这类信息能让用户少抽点烟。它的设计师是在用“谷歌医生”（Google Docs）和iPhone notes追踪自己的抽烟情况后才有了设计它的念头。他们知道自己并不总会因为自己抽了多少烟而感到自豪，因此也不会很有动力地记录这种行为。所以他们才会打造这么一款打火机来记录抽烟数据。中野卓二和阿塔o高夫拉尼这两位创始人表示，这款设备确实能帮吸烟者少抽烟。除此之外，Quitbit还能设定每天有效工作的次数。他们很注意不要激发吸烟者的负罪感，因为吸烟者需要一定的时间来认识到戒烟的必要性。中野说：“我们不得不小心行事，通过让吸烟者逐步意识到自己的吸烟量，持续地推动他们慢慢戒烟。我们希望能让他们确实有动力试着戒烟。”Quitbit已在众筹网站Kickstarter上公布了募资目标，今年晚些时候就能上市销售。

For drinkers, there are a myriad of iPhone breathalyzer tools that not only tell users how intoxicated they are and how long until they’ll be sober, but map out alcohol intake over time in a handy chart. The quantified drinker can choose from breathalyzer devices from BACTrack (which I reviewed last year),Breathometer, or Alcohoot.

喝酒的人们则可以选用各种iPhone上的酒精测试工具。它们不仅能告诉用户他们到底醉到了什么程度，还需要多久才能清醒，还能通过一个简明的表格显示出一段时间以来的酒精摄入量。喜欢定量的饮酒者可以选择的工具有BACTrack（去年我评测过），Breathometer或Alcohoot。

For speed-eaters, there’s Hapifork, an electronic fork that vibrates when its user eats too fast. The idea is that eating more slowly helps users consume less food, chewing more frequently to aid digestion and decrease gastric reflux. Naturally, there’s an app to go with it, tracking one’s eating speeds over time.

吃得太快的人可以使用Hapifork。这是一款电子叉子，用户如果吃得太快，它就会开始震动。它的设计理念是，吃得慢一些可以让用户吃得少些，咀嚼更充分以帮助消化，同时减少肠胃返流。它自然也自带了一款应用，可以监测用户一段时间内的饮食速度。

For fixing bad posture, there’s the LumoBack, a connected belt that vibrates any time its wearer slouches. A sensor can be set to pulse until the wearer has adjusted into a “good posture.” A related smartphone app allows users to “watch” their posture, assigning a score for how straight one is sitting or standing. In addition, the LumoBack tracks time spent standing, sitting, and sleeping.

如果要纠正不良体态，可以用LumoBack，每当用户弓腰塌背时，这条联网的带子就会震动。带子上的一个传感器会不断跳动，直到用户调整到“正确姿势”为止。一个相关的智能手机应用可以让用户“看到”自己的体态，并给自己坐得或站得有多直打分。此外，它还能监测我们站立、端坐及睡觉各花了多少时间。

For those uncomfortable wearing a vibrating belt, there’s Darma, the “smart cushion.” This device offers vibrating reminders to stand up (sitting kills, remember?) and to alert users to correct their bad posture. The company touts the cushion’s non-intrusiveness, since it is not stuck on your body.

有些人不喜欢戴着震动带，他们可以用Darma，所谓的“智能靠垫”。这个设备能发出震动提示，让用户站起来（记得吗？坐着很难受），同时警告用户纠正自己的糟糕体态。生产这款设备的公司大谈这个“靠垫”是如何不烦人，因为它不需要挂在身体上。

But the most punishing device, not yet available in the market, is the Pavlok, its name a nod to the father of classical conditioning research. Pavlok was created by Maneesh Sethi, a blogger who became Internet-famous when he hired a woman to slap him every time he mindlessly opened Facebook. The Pavlok bracelet, which has been beta testing several hundred users, grew out of that experiment. (The company will launch a crowdfunding campaign later this year, Sethi says.)

而最具惩罚性、目前还没有上市的一款设备叫Pavlok，这个名字是为了纪念经典条件反射理论研究之父的。它的发明者是梅尼西o塞西，这是一位在网上暴得大名的博主。之所以出名，是因为他曾经雇了一位女性，只要看到他不当心打开了Facebook就扇他一巴掌。Pavlok腕带就是从这种试验中打造出来的，而且正在几百位用户中进行测试（塞西称，公司今年晚些时候会为此发布一个众筹计划）。

Users can program the bracelet to change a variety of habits, from opening fewer tabs in their web browser, to meditating every day. Pavlok users assign themselves a goal and choose a “referee,” who gets a text message to check in every day at 7 p.m. If the user hasn’t completed their goal, they get a shock through the bracelet and charged money through the app. If they complete their goal, they get rewards like lottery tickets or money. Sethi says the bracelet starts with punishment for bad behavior, and moves to positive feedback for good behavior over time. “The negative gets you started and the positive keeps the habit going,” he says. “As you start to succeed, you can take away the negative reinforcement and give positive reinforcement. And then the habit comes more automatic and you don’t need it at all.”

用户可以通过设定自己的腕带来改变很多习惯，既可以在浏览器里少开几个标签，也可以学会每天冥想。Pavlok的用户可以给自己设定一个目标，同时选择一位“仲裁者”。这位仲裁会收到一条短信，每天晚上七点对该用户进行检查。如果这名用户没有完成目标，腕带就会传给他们一阵震动，同时还会被从应用里扣钱。如果他们完成了目标，就能获得彩票或现金之类的奖励。塞西表示，这种腕带从惩戒坏习惯开始，随着时间推移开始逐渐奖励好行为。他说：“负面回馈先让你开始用上它，慢慢地正面奖励帮助你养成好习惯。当你开始养成好习惯时，就可以取消惩戒措施，代之以正面的奖励。随后，当这个习惯逐渐变得自然而然后，你就不再需要它了。”

This wave of punishing devices may end up with same high abandonment rates as fitness trackers. But in the case of breaking bad habits, abandonment doesn’t mean failure–it could mean users have successfully broken their bad habits and no longer need a device to judge them.

这一波惩罚神器的浪潮可能最终也会像健康追踪器一样以被丢在一边收场。但如果能借此改掉坏习惯，哪怕丢了也不代表失败——这反而说明用户成功改掉了坏习惯，再也不需要这么个玩意儿来看着自己了。