Institute For The Future

From knowing what’s good for our health to doing what’s good for our health

 

While many of us are motivated to quit smoking, lose weight, and exercise more in order to live healthier, longer lives, changing our daily habits can be a difficult challenge to overcome. Ubiquitous computing will allow the environments in which we live, work, and play to monitor and communicate with us about our health at the right time and in the right place in order to persuade us to make healthier decisions.

 

Embedded sensors in everything from the walls in our homes to the clothes we wear provide continuous wireless monitoring of our biometrics and our activities, triggering the delivery of just-in-time, contextualized and customized feedback via mobile devices or ambient technology. These pervasive platforms provide relevant information for decision-making, suggest healthy behaviors, and connect us to our social networks and health care teams for encouragement and support. The messaging we receive may take many forms, including simulations, visualizations, and augmented reality.

 

Recent studies have shown that social networks play a significant role in our health, spreading behaviors related to obesity, smoking, and even happiness. Social networks aren’t new, but these emerging technologies provide greater opportunities for us not only to connect with others, but also to harness the influence and power of our social networks. Tapping into social norms is one strategy—if all of your friends are using tracking technology to measure their activity levels, then you will be inclined to do so, too. Encouragement and accountability, along with friendly challenges, are also strong motivating forces that help people regulate the way they behave. Game designers are also creating experiences that use online platforms, geo-location technology, and mobile devices with social elements to subtly encourage physical activity.

 

Virtual reality (VR) can also play a role in behavior change, from improving interpersonal skills to conquering fears to changing smoking and eating habits. VR technology integrates real-time computer graphics, body tracking sensors, audio/visual/touch displays, and sensory input devices to immerse a participant in an interactive computer-generated virtual environment (VE) that changes in a natural way with head and body motion. VR allows for precise control over complex, immersive and dynamic three-dimensional stimulus presentations that can uniquely target a variety of psychological, cognitive, and physical disorders for systematic testing and treatment. VEs provide a fundamental advancement in how human functioning can be addressed in many health-related situations.