Susie Orbach
One can see the temptation of quantifying all sorts of aspects of life with apps and wearable gadgets— it speaks to order and self-improvement. Yet we psychoanalysts wonder: what do these new measurements tell us about what we fear? What could we be protecting ourselves from?
Measuring might feel like a way into addressing difficult behaviours such as being too sedentary or drinking too much. It might work—in some cases. But when so many of us are suddenly tracking so many things, it looks like a decidedly one-size-fits-all solution, which ignores the variety in what motivates our difficulties. Understanding something of what we are up to when we are doing things not in our best interest could be a wiser course.