This is because like most people these days, even if we don't know it, we are gamifying and tokenizing our experience by introducing the tracking of our activities, keeping score, so to speak.
True stuff, and I'm actively trying to stay away from devices that encourage this. While it can be a motivational tool to take those 1000 steps more to get your 10.000 daily, or to run that extra lap to burn those nice round 300 calories, I don't think it's something that's sustainable or healthy in the long term. Smart watches like these let don't leave too much room for failure, and that scares me. It makes our society even more results-driven and number-driven than I would like it to be.
I appreciate people who can live by the numbers and put in the work to reach the results they want to read on their devices, but I don't envy them. I wouldn't like to live life like it's a daily challenge, because I already have enough of those waiting for me around the corner. I don't want to see my watch pause at 3/4th of the bar because I "only" did 8500 steps today instead of 10.000. Sometimes 8500 is good enough.
Not saying that I disagree with your article, but I do take a different stance on it. My friends can love their devices and healthy lifestyle all they want, it wouldn't differ me on eating my pizza tonight. I'm a healthy young man with a healthy lifestyle and I'll keep it that way for sure, but in no distant future I will resort to any sort of device to keep track of that. I will listen to my body and look in the mirror, and that will have to do :).
RE: Watch Me - The draw of social proof