Hello fellow Earndit members! I just wanted to introduce myself as a new contributor here on the Earndit blog before you start seeing my posts pop up on a more regular basis. My name is Ernesto Ramirez and I’m a doctoral student in Public Health at San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego. I study how technology can be used to help measure, track, and change health behaviors. If you want to know more about me or my research please visit my website.
Here at Earndit we focus on providing you an innovate way to get rewarded for all the hard work you do out there while you run, cycle, swim and work out at the gym. Why do we think this is such a great idea? It comes down to a really simple concept that we’ve decided to use to help you (and everyone you know) lead a more healthy life: immediacy.
What is immediacy? Glad you asked! I’ll get to it in a bit, but first talks about health. When we think about the behaviors we engage in on a daily basis, most of what we do doesn’t immediately change our health. Think about it. The last time you went for an early morning run, could you see the change when you looked in the mirror afterwards? What about the last time you splurged for lunch and ordered that delicious Double Double with cheese (or whatever hamburger delicacy you enjoy). After you licked your fingers clean, did you feel your cholesterol rise? Did you suddenly stop fitting into your jeans? Obviously the answer to each of these questions is “no”. We all understand, although many of us forget, that health is a long-term process. The journey toward poor health and chronic disease takes time, usually years and years or making unhealthy choices. It also turns out that our awesome human brains have a hard time linking behaviors we do today with things that may or may not happen years from now. When it comes down to it, our behaviors are simply determined: we do things that make us feel good and avoid things that make us feel bad. Layer on our hectic lifestyles, daily anxiety and stress and we’re lucky people even think about exercising!
This is nothing new, so why are we talking about it now? I’ll tell you why, because we think that over here at Earndit we’ve developed a system that can help solve the behavior-consequence time gap. We do this by rewarding you for doing things that make you a healthier person. Did you run 3 miles in the morning with your Garmin? Awesome! Here’s 3o points. Did you get an hour of “very active” time when you wore your FitBit? Great! Why don’t you take 45 points! This is where immediacy comes in. You take those points you’ve earned and you can immediately turn them into amazing deals on products and services that we all enjoy. Think about it, you may not see much of a change in your body or weight after only 9 days of running 6 miles each day, but when you use Earndit those runs can be turned into a $50 gift card to Bonobos!
We think this system is an amazing tool to help you keep exercising and staying healthy. Positive, immediate, tangible reinforcement is the cornerstone of Earndit. You’re making your life better and you deserve to be rewarded!
What do you think? How has our reward system helped you lead a healthier life? Share your stories in the comments!
Yes, we’re cheezy.
