At a keynote event last week, I was asked an interesting question about something I’ve changed recently in my own life: going analogue. I’ve stopped wearing wearable tech and gone back to a simple wristwatch.
The question I was asked was this: has that decision made me more aware of what’s going on in my body?
And the honest answer is: yes, in a way it has.
Not because wearable tech is bad. I think it absolutely has its place, and everyone should make their own decisions about whether tracking their sleep, recovery, movement or other metrics is useful for them.
But for me, those metrics had stopped making any meaningful difference.
When more data stops being more helpful
Data can help build awareness, create habits, and show us patterns we might otherwise miss. It can support behaviour change, and for many people it still does. But I reached a point where I felt I had enough information.
I no longer needed another number to tell me how I’d slept, how recovered I was, or how hard I’d worked. I wanted to move back towards something more subjective, to tune into how I actually felt, rather than looking externally for confirmation.
Without the constant prompt of metrics, scores and dashboards, I’ve had to pay closer attention to my own body. Am I energised? Am I tired? Do I feel flat, strong, tense, calm, ready, or overloaded? Those signals are all still there. In some ways, they are easier to hear when they are not competing with constant streams of data.
The desire to stop optimising everything
There was another reason behind the decision too. I felt a strange pull away from technology.
Partly, I think that is because AI is becoming a much bigger part of all our lives. But it is also because so much is now measured, quantified and optimised. Almost everything can be tracked. Almost every experience can be analysed. There is always another metric to chase, another insight to uncover, another layer of performance to improve.
And if I’m honest, I think I’m about as optimised as I want to be.
At some point, the constant pursuit of improvement can start to feel like interference rather than support. It can take us further away from the very thing we were trying to improve in the first place: our actual lived experience.
I want to work out because it feels good to move. Because I enjoy it. Because I like how I feel afterwards. That feels healthier to me now.
A wider craving for what’s real
I think many of us are beginning to feel a pull back towards things that are tangible, human and real.
In a world that is increasingly digital, automated and AI-enabled, there is something deeply appealing about experiences that are not generated by a computer, not tracked by an app, and not measured for output.
Live music rather than streamed playlists.
Live art rather than digital replication.
Face-to-face conversation rather than another online exchange.
Movement for enjoyment rather than performance data.
Presence rather than productivity.
It feels as though, collectively, we may be starting to crave reality again.
Not because technology has no value. It does. But because perhaps we are remembering that not everything meaningful can be measured.
Awareness without constant tracking
What I’ve found most interesting is that removing the tech has not made me less engaged with my wellbeing. If anything, it has encouraged a different kind of awareness.
A quieter one.
A more intuitive one.
A less outsourced one.
It has prompted me to ask:
How do I feel today?
What do I need?
What is my body telling me?
What would support me best right now?
Those are not questions a device can answer for me. It can provide data, certainly. But interpretation, judgement and self-awareness still belong to us.
And perhaps that is part of the opportunity here, not to reject technology entirely, but to make sure we are not losing touch with ourselves in the process.
So, are you feeling it too?
I’m curious whether you are noticing something similar?
Are you feeling a desire to step back from technology a little?
To spend less time tracking and more time noticing?
To reconnect with things that feel real and unfiltered?
In a world that is becoming ever more digital, there may be something powerful in choosing, occasionally and deliberately, to go analogue.
