I take running seriously, not in the sense that I compete to win races (or even my age groups, though that happens at some smaller races), but in that I train for races to try to run my best time in them. Thus, I regularly think about how I can improve my times, both on training runs and for races. Not surprisingly, then, I spend more time than I should looking at and thinking about my running watch. What would probably surprise most people, especially most people who take their running seriously, is that I don’t have one of the cutting edge watches, though I have been thinking about upgrading recently.
When I began running about twenty years ago, I used a fairly standard digital watch with a stopwatch feature on it. I would drive the route I planned to run to measure out the distance. I didn’t know where particular miles ended (or, if I did, it was more of a guess than anything), so I couldn’t know if I was running faster or slower in any particular mile. Thus, when my parents bought my first Timex Ironman watch as a Christmas present (though I was the one who selected it), I was then able to mark my time with more precision. Even though I didn’t have a watch with GPS, I did use an online route creator, so I had more knowledge about mile markings.
Even that approach was pretty rudimentary, though. I would click the watch to mark a particular spot, as I still didn’t know where each mile began or ended, then check on the online route how far I had run. I would then calculate the time for that distance to get a decent estimate of my mile times. This approach worked well enough, as I continued to improve as long as I was healthy and avoided injury.
However, I recently took a new job, one with a health plan that enables me to earn points. You can probably see where this is going. Those points enabled me to get a new watch, one with GPS. I resisted doing so, but I began running more on greenways that I can’t measure by car or even online routes, and I’m too obsessive not to know exactly how far I’m running. The new watch not only gives me more accurate mile times, it can tell me (roughly) the pace I’m currently running, in addition to some biometric date (heart rate, especially).
When I began running about twenty years ago, I used a fairly standard digital watch with a stopwatch feature on it. I would drive the route I planned to run to measure out the distance. I didn’t know where particular miles ended (or, if I did, it was more of a guess than anything), so I couldn’t know if I was running faster or slower in any particular mile. Thus, when my parents bought my first Timex Ironman watch as a Christmas present (though I was the one who selected it), I was then able to mark my time with more precision. Even though I didn’t have a watch with GPS, I did use an online route creator, so I had more knowledge about mile markings.
Even that approach was pretty rudimentary, though. I would click the watch to mark a particular spot, as I still didn’t know where each mile began or ended, then check on the online route how far I had run. I would then calculate the time for that distance to get a decent estimate of my mile times. This approach worked well enough, as I continued to improve as long as I was healthy and avoided injury.
However, I recently took a new job, one with a health plan that enables me to earn points. You can probably see where this is going. Those points enabled me to get a new watch, one with GPS. I resisted doing so, but I began running more on greenways that I can’t measure by car or even online routes, and I’m too obsessive not to know exactly how far I’m running. The new watch not only gives me more accurate mile times, it can tell me (roughly) the pace I’m currently running, in addition to some biometric date (heart rate, especially).
Lately, though, I built up enough points that I could buy some of the newest watches on the market. There are some that would enable me to check my blood oxygen saturation, my breathing, stamina, and vo2max. Some provide training plan recommendations while there are even those that would enable me to send an ECG to my doctor. And I only focused on the ones that are specifically designed for runners. We’ve come a long way since I was looking for mile split times. I was tempted by a few of them, but I decided to stick with the watch I have.
And that’s when I began thinking of my watch as a metaphor for everything that’s wrong with America. When I was talking with my wife about getting a new watch, she rightly pointed out that it wouldn’t cost me anything to get that watch, and I could give my old watch away, two points she knew I would like. She was right, of course. But I still didn’t get the new watch. While it’s true that it wouldn’t cost me any money, it would cost somebody something, somebody I couldn’t see somewhere, but who would pay and pay and pay.
There have been recent reports of protests at factories in China that produce Apple products. Due to a shortage of workers, the factory began promising bonuses to people who would take those jobs, but the factory then refused to honor those promises. Chinese police then beat and attacked those protesters. Foxconn, the company who runs these factories, has been in the news before for a variety of problems at their factories: worker suicides, wage exploitation, serious and fatal accidents, underage and illegal workers, and poor living conditions. These factories don’t only produce products for Apple, but also for Amazon, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and Nokia, among others.
Even if my particular watch isn’t made in such a factory, the odds of its using technology that comes from rare-earth mineral mining are pretty high. While some of the American mines are providing better working conditions and attempting to be more mindful of their environmental impact, much of that mining is still done in countries like China, where the labor and environmental laws don’t protect people or the earth. Somebody or something is paying for my watch, even if I’m not.
And while I might be able to donate my watch to a thrift shop or even to a running store, perhaps, that watch is ultimately going to end up in a landfill. Those who design today’s technology don’t have longevity goals for their products. The goal is to provide newer features that will encourage people to buy the latest item. No matter how long I want to keep my watch, I’ll ultimately need a new one, as this one will begin not to work. The reason I still own two Timex Ironman watches is because the light went out on one, so I couldn’t run in the dark with it. There are enough discarded products going into American landfills today, so I don’t need to add anything to it.
Some people might point out that we need to continue buying such products, that such purchases keep America’s economy going, keep people employed. That’s true on one level, but we also have a economy that seems to only function by overworking people and not paying many of them a living wage. For most of the twentieth century, economists predicted the end of the forty-hour work week. They believed that technological advances would enable us all to have much more leisure time, so we could explore the outdoors and arts and culture. Such predictions have not come true, of course, but that’s largely because they didn’t predict how people would react to newer and newer products. If we were all satisfied with the basic necessities of life, we would have much more time in our lives for other interests.
And that gets to one other problem, the most insidious because it’s the least visible. Granted, these other problems remain out of our immediate sight, so we can easily ignore them. And we do. However, the other issue is what buying the newest products does to us. We begin to believe we need the newest technology. What once was a luxury becomes a necessity, at least in our thinking. When cell phones were becoming more popular, I was talking to a co-worker about the effects I was seeing in my college students. I pointed out that they had redefined the use of the word emergency. When people first bought the phones, they said they would use them only in the case of an emergency. Within a few months, a student told me texting a friend to meet at the cafeteria became an emergency. When I told her this comment, she responded, “I would consider that an emergency.” Technology (and, in fact, all products) aren't neutral. They change our behavior.
We have moved from buying what we need to buying what we want, consequences be damned. We want the newest technology, regardless of what they actually bring to our lives (most of us don’t need to send an ECG to our doctors, for example). We want and we want and we want, and we’re never satisfied. We no longer want the latest product so we can compete with our neighbors; instead, we want it because we simply want it. We’re willing to go into debt to get it. We’re willing to sacrifice our health and well-being to get it. We’re willing to ignore others’ suffering to get it. We have become the definition of consumers, and we will consume ourselves, others, and the world, just to get what we want.
And that’s when I began thinking of my watch as a metaphor for everything that’s wrong with America. When I was talking with my wife about getting a new watch, she rightly pointed out that it wouldn’t cost me anything to get that watch, and I could give my old watch away, two points she knew I would like. She was right, of course. But I still didn’t get the new watch. While it’s true that it wouldn’t cost me any money, it would cost somebody something, somebody I couldn’t see somewhere, but who would pay and pay and pay.
There have been recent reports of protests at factories in China that produce Apple products. Due to a shortage of workers, the factory began promising bonuses to people who would take those jobs, but the factory then refused to honor those promises. Chinese police then beat and attacked those protesters. Foxconn, the company who runs these factories, has been in the news before for a variety of problems at their factories: worker suicides, wage exploitation, serious and fatal accidents, underage and illegal workers, and poor living conditions. These factories don’t only produce products for Apple, but also for Amazon, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and Nokia, among others.
Even if my particular watch isn’t made in such a factory, the odds of its using technology that comes from rare-earth mineral mining are pretty high. While some of the American mines are providing better working conditions and attempting to be more mindful of their environmental impact, much of that mining is still done in countries like China, where the labor and environmental laws don’t protect people or the earth. Somebody or something is paying for my watch, even if I’m not.
And while I might be able to donate my watch to a thrift shop or even to a running store, perhaps, that watch is ultimately going to end up in a landfill. Those who design today’s technology don’t have longevity goals for their products. The goal is to provide newer features that will encourage people to buy the latest item. No matter how long I want to keep my watch, I’ll ultimately need a new one, as this one will begin not to work. The reason I still own two Timex Ironman watches is because the light went out on one, so I couldn’t run in the dark with it. There are enough discarded products going into American landfills today, so I don’t need to add anything to it.
Some people might point out that we need to continue buying such products, that such purchases keep America’s economy going, keep people employed. That’s true on one level, but we also have a economy that seems to only function by overworking people and not paying many of them a living wage. For most of the twentieth century, economists predicted the end of the forty-hour work week. They believed that technological advances would enable us all to have much more leisure time, so we could explore the outdoors and arts and culture. Such predictions have not come true, of course, but that’s largely because they didn’t predict how people would react to newer and newer products. If we were all satisfied with the basic necessities of life, we would have much more time in our lives for other interests.
And that gets to one other problem, the most insidious because it’s the least visible. Granted, these other problems remain out of our immediate sight, so we can easily ignore them. And we do. However, the other issue is what buying the newest products does to us. We begin to believe we need the newest technology. What once was a luxury becomes a necessity, at least in our thinking. When cell phones were becoming more popular, I was talking to a co-worker about the effects I was seeing in my college students. I pointed out that they had redefined the use of the word emergency. When people first bought the phones, they said they would use them only in the case of an emergency. Within a few months, a student told me texting a friend to meet at the cafeteria became an emergency. When I told her this comment, she responded, “I would consider that an emergency.” Technology (and, in fact, all products) aren't neutral. They change our behavior.
We have moved from buying what we need to buying what we want, consequences be damned. We want the newest technology, regardless of what they actually bring to our lives (most of us don’t need to send an ECG to our doctors, for example). We want and we want and we want, and we’re never satisfied. We no longer want the latest product so we can compete with our neighbors; instead, we want it because we simply want it. We’re willing to go into debt to get it. We’re willing to sacrifice our health and well-being to get it. We’re willing to ignore others’ suffering to get it. We have become the definition of consumers, and we will consume ourselves, others, and the world, just to get what we want.