Thought Shrapnel

Matt Webb is, like me, over 40 years of age. Although some would argue differently, it’s a time when you realise that your fastest days are behind you. So apps like Strava reminding you that you’re not quite as fast as you were a few years ago isn’t… particularly helpful.

There’s definitely a gap in the market for fitness apps for people who are no longer spring chickens and, although they like to challenge themselves occasionally, aren’t trying to smash it every time they go out for a run, cycle, or to the gym. I also appreciate Webb’s related point that there comes a time when reminders about things in life are just a bit painful. The opportunity not to be reminded about things would be nice.

Part of getting older is finding that my PBs each time I train up - personal bests - are not as quick as they were before. […]

I’m currently trying to increase my baseline endurance and went out for a 17 mi run a few days ago. Paused to take photos of the Thames Barrier and a rainbow, no stress. Beautiful. Felt ok when I finished – hey I made it back! Wild!

Then Strava showed me the almost identical run from exactly 5 years ago, I’d forgotten: a super steady pace, a whole minute per mile faster than this week’s tough muddle through. […]

Our quantified self apps (Strava is one) are built by people with time on their side and capacity to improve. A past achievement will almost certainly remind you of a happy day that can be visited again or, in the rear view mirror, has been joyfully surpassed. But for older people… And I’m not even that old, just past my physical peak… […]

I’m not asking Strava to hide these reminders. I’ve found peace (not as completely as I thought it turns out). But I don’t want to avoid those memories. Reminded, I do remember that time from 2020! It is a happy memory! I like to remember what I could do, even if it is slightly bittersweet! […]

And I’ll bet we’re all having that feeling a little bit, deep down, unnamed and unlocated and unconscious quite often, amplified by using these apps. So many of us are using apps that draw from the quantified self movement (Wikipedia) of the 2010s, in one way or another, and that movement was by young people. Perhaps there were considerations unaccounted for – getting older for one. There will be consequences for that, however subtle.

(Another blindspot of the under 40s: it is the most heartbreaking thing to see birthday notifications for people who are no longer with us. Please, please, surely there is a more humane way to handle this?)

So I can’t help viewing some of the present day’s fierce obsession with personal health and longevity or even brain uploads not as a healthy desire for progress but, amplified by poor design work, as an attempt to outrun death.

Source: Interconnected

Image: Tim Foster