Dear Apple watch, we need to talk.

If you just joined the apple watch club, congratulations — You are now amongst that breed who obsessively look at their watch. Well, less to track time and more to keep a tab on how many calories you’ve burnt and if Marc from Bumble has texted back. For a watch, ironically time is an overlooked function. (Let’s be honest if the reverse were true, you wouldn’t be 7 mins late to that zoom meeting- now would you?!)

I am definitely one of those people. Wearing mine like a badge of honour for closing my rings 14 days in a row. Yes, well done Hershey — you totally deserve that self shoulder pat. But this is less about my personal accomplishments — we’ll save that for another day. This is about humanizing design. (Spoiler alert, we’re not talking about Siri).

When asked about my favourite piece of design — the Apple watch definitely makes it to my top 3. While it is designed as a fitness band appealing to #fitspos, it does gather more attention with an audience who are in a complicated relationship with the 7 am run club. You could look at it as the equivalent of buying new workout gear for yet another nudge to restart that fitness routine. Only, it rewards you more immediately than a Nike sports tank for every time you tell the couch —” Sorry, it’s not you. It’s the move ring on my watch that I must close!”. A classic example of rewarding behaviour to build good habits. We consistently do what we are rewarded for. Who doesn’t like an award for a perfect workout week, a timely bonus at work or just words of appreciation from that tough Asian mom? (Though when it comes to your dog — observations have found, treats score better results than just a ‘gwood boiii’). Awarding your accomplishments, dropping you cute encouraging texts to ‘keep it going’ — the Apple watch does do a good job in helping you stay motivated. A pretty handy tool in keeping you accountable for building healthy habits (absolutely pun intended).

But there’s also another spectrum to this. The fitness buffs. And if you are one, keeping that ring-streak going is no big deal for you. But every once in a while you may find yourself suffering from what I call, the ring-xiety. If you find yourself obsessively looking at how many more calories to go, breaking into jumping jacks in the middle of a meeting or feeling anxious about not breaking the longest move streak — chances are you could be suffering from Ring-xiety. While movement is an important component of a healthy lifestyle, there’s one key ingredient that’s overlooked. Recovery.

Rest days are very crucial to muscle recovery if you lead a pretty active lifestyle. If you are a fitness buff, this is no news. Some might take on active recovery on those days with a long walk or a leisure swim. But some of us might actually prefer sleeping lying down. On those days, closing the rings is hard. Losing that 14-day streak and restarting? Harder. The stakes are high and Ring-xiety seeps in. The last thing you need is a notification from your watch telling you ‘you can still do this’.

Now of course this was bound to happen in a design based on rewarding behaviour. But there are also a few solutions. For starters, you could intentionally choose to ‘switch off’ and leave your watch aside. But this will just treat the symptom. To address the root cause, one could consider taking up therapy to work on detaching themselves from the idea of quantifying their accomplishments. Longer but a more effective process. There is, however, a third and slightly unconventional approach — addressing the empathy gap in its design. Now I wouldn’t say it’s missing but perhaps we could do with an empathy update in the next release.

Because.

Dear Apple watch — you’ve been a real cheerleader, so far. And we’ve come a long way. But maybe you tone down that Tony Robbins a little and honour my need for rest once in a while. We can start by cutting me some slack, especially when you do know my next menstrual cycle is about to start. And if we’re talking real emotional intelligence, perhaps you could even remind me to take a rest day before I hit that fitness fatigue. You see, if we are going to stick together and do this right — we’re going to need an empathy intervention in this grand design!

Yours humanly,
Hershey (who broke her ring-streak after 14 days in a row)