The buzz on your wrist is insistent. Not angry, not yet, but a persistent, digital nudge that says you are incomplete. You’ve been sitting for 48 minutes straight. Your move ring, a circle of mocking, vibrant red, is only two-thirds full. The day is almost over. A familiar, low-grade anxiety settles in your stomach. It’s the same feeling you get when you have 8 unread emails from your boss. It’s the feeling of a task undone.
So you get on the stationary bike. The one tucked in the corner of the room, facing a beige wall. You pedal. Not with joy, not with any sense of purpose other than appeasing the algorithm. You watch the numbers on the tiny screen climb. Calories burned: 18, 28, 38. You’re not moving your body through space; you are generating data to close a loop.
This isn’t exercise. It’s administration.
The relentless quantification of movement strips it of its inherent joy and purpose.
We fell for it so beautifully. We were promised that data would set us free. Track your steps, monitor your sleep, log your macros, and you will unlock the optimal human experience. And for a while, it worked. I loved it. I admit it freely. I loved watching my resting heart rate drop by 8 points over a few months. I felt a surge of pride seeing my VO2 max estimate creep into the ‘excellent’ category. Each notification was a gold star, a pat






















































