A Massive Social Experiment On You Is Under Way, And You Will Love It

Jawbone CEO and co-founder Hosain Rahman says that through constant experimentation, his fitness trackers are 'helping people bridge the gap between their intentions and their actions.' 

Monica Rogati had already created one of the most intelligent job-networking systems in the world, the code that sifted through LinkedIn profiles and magically recommended “People You May Know,” when she got a recruitment call in 2013 from a company known for its portable speakers, Bluetooth earpieces and not too much else.

Jawbone, it turned out, was getting into the health-tracking business. It had already begun selling a sensor-rich wristband called the UP that monitors its wearer’s steps and sleep. Now it wanted scientists and behavioral psychologists to make sense of all the health data.

Intrigued, Rogati signed on. As she began poring over the sleep patterns of tens of thousands of people, something caught her eye. “I was seeing that… women were getting an average of 21 minutes more sleep per night,” she says. “I thought, ‘No way.’ ”

Rogati doubled-checked the data. The number kept turning up again and again. Then she turned to academic literature. To her surprise, numerous scientific studies–the kind that tracked 300 or so people over a short period of time–had found that women slept more than men to the tune of about…21 minutes. Jawbone’s millions of data points precisely correlated with decades of scientific research.

Source:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/01/21/jawbone-guinea-pig-economy/?ss=data-companies