Fitbit and other wearable devices have undoubtedly transformed the way we track our activity levels.  After their acquisition by Google however, perhaps more people will appreciate the value in the data generated by the devices.

New research from the University of Washington provides a salient reminder by showing how data from the devices can highlight how discrimination in our daily life affects how we behave.

The researchers recruited volunteers from the student body at the university, and tracked their activity levels alongside self-reports of unfair treatment by them.  The data revealed that those who suffered from unfair treatment seemed to be more physically active, used their phones more frequently and slept less than their peers.

Tracking mental health

The researchers began the study by trying to better track the mental health of students.  They thought passive monitoring might prove a more effective way of uncovering problems.

They equipped a couple of hundred volunteers with Fitbit devices to track both their physical activity and their sleep, with a separate app also monitoring their phone usage.

In addition to the wearable data, students completed surveys repeatedly throughout the six-month study period, with surveying especially intense during crucial periods, such as midterm and final exams.  The surveys were designed to discover any unfair treatment the students had experienced.

“We had a very large table comparing everything, such as the number of steps that you’ve had for each day,” the researchers say. “We also marked the days for the reports when they exist. Then it’s a matter of determining for each individual whether there are changes for days with discrimination events compared to days with no events.”

Changes to behavior

In total, there were around 450 discrimination events reported, which provided a nice sample through which to monitor changes in behavior as a result.  It emerged that people would typically walk 500 extra steps, and spend 15 minutes less in bed on the days when they experienced discrimination in some way.

While it’s obviously difficult to generalize about the responses taken by students to discrimination, the researchers nonetheless believe the findings are valuable.  They found that the main causes of discrimination revolved around ancestry, intelligence and gender.  With over half of the students reporting at least one discriminatory event, it’s clearly a problem of some significance.

“These students are not just giving us data, which sounds like some abstract, unemotional term. They are sharing deeply personal information with us,” the researchers say. “It’s very important to me that we honor that gift by finding ways to help that don’t place the responsibility to deal with discrimination all on the individual. I’m not going to be satisfied if all we do is say, ‘If you just did X differently…’ Coping strategies are really important, but we also need to ask how we can change the structural things that are leading to these experiences.”

It’s a project that the team plan to continue working on in order to gather a richer pool of data, and hopefully therefore a more detailed insight into the problem at hand.