Wanted: Adaptive Encouragement
It’s that time of year again. The global holiday of January 1, and with it, the annual ritual of self-improvement: setting New Year’s resolutions. It’s a time when we’re called on to reflect on our lives and the behaviors we might want to change—and bombarded with ideas on how to do so. It’s the time of year that makes me crave the realization of one of our Science and Technology forecasts: Adaptive Encouragement.
- Miriam Lueck Avery's blog
- Login to post comments
-
Automated Nourishment
Last year, when we created our Map on the Future of Science and Technology and Well-Being, we were looking for convergences. What experimental, and seemingly disparate technologies might converge over the next decade to change how we pursue well-being?
- Bradley Kreit's blog
- Login to post comments
-
The Future of Sleep

How well do you sleep? If you're like 1 in 5 Americans, you don't get enough hours of shut-eye every night. But new findings and hints of a sleep revolution are underway, that give us a peek at what sleep might look like in the future.
- Alexandra Carmichael's blog
- Login to post comments
-
The Danger of Measuring Emotions
An easy way to identify a future dilemma is to spot two polar, but entirely sensible, reactions to an emerging practice or technology.
- Bradley Kreit's blog
- Login to post comments
-
Play to be healthy, one month at a time

Can playing a game online help you be healthier? Buster Benson thinks so.
- Alexandra Carmichael's blog
- Login to post comments
-
A new model: Crowd Self-Experiments
There's a new twist happening in the Quantified Self space.
What was previously only individuals reporting on their data gathering and occasional self-experiments is now transforming into collectives. People are defining experiments to do on themselves as a group, then compare the data in a kind of crowdsourced research trial.
- Alexandra Carmichael's blog
- Login to post comments
-
What if Self-Tracking Goes Mainstream?

Does the future include everyone measuring themselves in some way and contributing that data to research? Quite possibly, but it’s more complicated than that.
- Alexandra Carmichael's blog
- Login to post comments
-
Is That Your Wallet in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See me?
Via PSFK, I came across three concept designs for wallets from MIT's Media Lab that would offer real-time feedback on our spending habits. For example, the "Mother Bear" concept wallet would have a hinge on it "with a shorted motor in the hinge that resists opening" when the wallet's owner needs to start saving.
- Bradley Kreit's blog
- Login to post comments
-
How did you sleep last night?
As my colleagues know, that I am blogging at this hour of the morning is an indication that I have had a bad night's sleep. I am not alone. Approximately 29 percent of U.S. adults report sleeping less than seven hours per night (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) recommend seven to nine hours) and as many as 70 million have chronic sleep and wakefulness disorders.
- Vivian Distler's blog
- Login to post comments
-
Self-Tracking for Activity... and Investing?
Consumer electronics company Phillips has recently released a couple new products that integrate self-tracking and biofeedback into the design in order to optimize the user's behavior.
- Bradley Kreit's blog
- Login to post comments
-