
The Impact of Coronavirus on Global Activity - ApicalDendrite
https://blog.fitbit.com/covid-19-global-activity/
======
mattlondon
Anecdotally, the only people I know in the UK who wear fitbits these days are
retirees.

I have seen a huge increase in the number of people out and about running.
Perhaps they all ran on treadmills at the gym before (we are permitted to
leave the house once a day for a run/walk/cycle), but from my anecdata I've
seen perhaps a 5x to 10x increase in other runners out when I am running in
London so a drop in activity does not tally with my personal and limited
observations.

It would not surprise me one jot to see that retirees (i.e. those most
vulnerable to corvid) are not out and moving around as much.

~~~
alamortsubite
I've noticed far more people running where I live in the U.S., too. Today, it
was cold and raining, and runners were everywhere. Ordinarily, I'd have
expected to be the only one.

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pedalpete
We make 3D virtual world maps for outdoor sports, and our API is built into a
few different sports tracking apps, so I can give a bit of insight across a
spectrum of different brands (without giving any details about who may be down
more than others).

This is normally a high-growth time of year for us and February had started
out REALLY well for us. We started to see a bit of a flattening of growth, and
then March hit.

We're down 30% week on week for the past two weeks. This is amalgamated across
visitors to our own site as well as the our API customers users. Everyone is
being hit.

Most users come from the USA and Europe (France, Spain, UK, and Italy in
particular).

A bunch of race events also use our tech, and of course, that has all
disappeared.

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cs02rm0
Personally my time spent exercising has increased. I'm working from home,
without spending hours a day commuting and I'm allowed to exercise outside in
the UK so every few days I run 5 miles.

I wonder if the trends are hiding larger swings in both directions.

~~~
baby
Same here. We discovered that we have a park 5min walk from home so we go
there every day to play tennis and badminton.

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mumblemumble
To add one more possible partial explanation to the list:

Back when I wore a fitness tracker, I typically didn't bother to put it on
when I was staying home, including work from home days. It stays on the
dresser next to my wallet, which doesn't get put in my pocket when I'm staying
home.

I _am_ going for long walks several times a day, in order to ensure I'm
getting my exercise. I'm just not bothering to bring anything other than my
house keys and _maybe_ my cell phone when I do it.

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exochrono
Fascinating. To be honest I'm surprised the declines aren't more significant.
I guess it just goes to show how sedentary many of our lives already are xD

~~~
cataflam
I'm going to make a wild bet that active FitBit users are not representative
of the population on that matter, and will try to maintain a higher level of
activity.

~~~
ApicalDendrite
Fitbit users are probably more representative than Apple or Garmin users.
Apple Watches are a lot more expensive, and Garmin markets more towards
athletes.

~~~
abjKT26nO8
Smartwatch users are not representative, forget about the brands.

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mavsman
I was wondering when something like this would come out. It would be
interesting to see other stats like:

\- Screen time usage \- Air quality over time \- Baby births (in 9 months) \-
Etc.

I'm sure we'll see more of this in due time.

~~~
mr_toad
I wouldn’t be surprised if the increase in births outweighs the number of
deaths.

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peeters
> ¹Some of the year-over-year change in activity may be due to weather or
> shift in holiday schedules.

Yeah that's going to be particularly significant for certain countries.
Obviously globally, the year-over-year trend is significant, but if you're
going to plot it in such a way that emphasizes certain countries, it would be
good to know if e.g. Spain also had rain this past week but not this week last
year.

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chovy
[https://virusoutbreak.wtf](https://virusoutbreak.wtf)

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11235813213455
If you eat less, you can exercise less, some yoga is perfect for example. You
could also take profit of that time to fast a bit

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vilen
As an athlete, I'm not surprised by these results. Most people are sedentary
and step counting only goes so far to improve their health. Even in Italy, as
shown in the article's graph, the decline has been 25%. If the recommended
goal 10,000 steps per day then 7,500 is still a good number to hit during a
pandemic.

~~~
dimtion
I would be very surprised that the average number of steps across their
userbase has uniformly decreased for all users.

For example we could imagine the scenario where some people were able to keep
their habit and did not have a great decrease in step numbers, while some
other sub-groups have become sedentary because of the confinement. This would
show up as an increase in variance in the number of steps.

Stats are hard and it is very easy to draw a wrong conclusion (that sound
right) from aggregated data.

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lgleason
It would be interesting to see if sedentary lifestyle causes of death go up if
the lockdowns are prolonged.

~~~
calmworm
Prolonged for 10-20 years? I can’t see even 12 months of sedentary lifestyle
moving the needle much if at all.

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throwaway_pdp09
This is about physical activity, not economic as I first assumed.

It's also pretty much an advert "Try a free 90-day trial of Fitbit Premium"

Also there may be an issue of privacy WRT your personal data, even if this is
aggregated and anonymised for this particular article.

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randyrand
How does fit bit have this information? What is their privacy policy?

~~~
philipov
Don't you remember when they released the movement paths of everyone globally
and it was possible to see the location of military bases, based on activity,
even though the data was "anonymized"?

~~~
el_benhameen
That was Strava, not Fitbit.

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bmsleight_
I am using my one exercise unit a day to make sure I keep my steps/walk/runs
up. (Although not on fitbit)

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partiallypro
I haven't even worn my Fitbit since I've been sidelined and forced to work
remote/never go out.

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Deleriumm
_Try a free 90-day trial of Fitbit Premium_

No, thank you.

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merrvk
Why do fitbit have this data?

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choward
That's a misleading title. This is the change in step counts around the world
over 12 weeks from 2019/2020 from one fitness product manufacturer's data.
That's a very selective group. Sure, it's data from people all over the globe,
but it's a very select non-representative group. But that doesn't mean these
people aren't doing workouts at home that don't pad their step count stats.

> We’ve laid out the data—now we want to provide you with some tips to stay
> healthy and active

Great segue! I read that as "We know this data isn't interesting that's why
all we could do is lay it out. This is our attempt of monetizing our precious
data by creating a clever way to push our product."

This just seems yet another company using COVID-19 to generate profit by
offering a free limited trial of their paid service. They also promote a hand-
washing app. I find that pretty hilarious. If you can remember to use the app
you can remember to count on your own.

