If you walked on to one of the many CES show floors last week, you probably realized that wearables are quickly taking over the tech industry. From Swarovski-encrusted activity trackers to GPS-enabled footwear, there's a growing contingent in the tech world to quantify every aspect of our lives or have data to back up every moment.
Of course, this is technically nothing new. With the help of our smartphones, social media somewhat does this for us already. Tweets are timestamped so you can look back and see when you told the world your thoughts about Guardians of the Galaxy. Foursquare keeps track of all of the restaurants you visited on your latest trip to London. Instagram captures the scene at your university's bowl game victory.
And now wearables are attempting to quantify not only what we do but who we are as people. Activity trackers have been around for a while, but they're starting to really saturate the market with the capability to track your steps, count your calories and monitor how far you run every day. Many of them can also tell you how much sleep you get each night.
Hitting an emotional cord, as these wearables and others do, might also be a way to make wearables more appealing to women going forward, beyond just making it look like a BeDazzler threw up on them. Many women want their wearables to be sleek and stylish, but they also want them to fit into their lives and make their life easier and more enjoyable. For anyone wanting to know how to get more women to use wearables, establishing an emotional connection may be it.
I think these wearables and others like them will be successful in the future because they solve a complaint that many people have with technology today, the fact that it takes you out of the moment and into staring at a screen. But technology is only going to become more and more present in our lives. The trick is to not let technology overrun it but to use it to bring moments to life again and again.
