The Pavlok wristband is a ‘habit-forming’ wearable band which will literally shock you into exercising, waking up on time and what not by administering mild electric jolts to your wrist area when needed. Mind you, developer Maneesh Sethi is the same guy who hired a girl on Craigslist to slap him each time he went on Facebook when he was meant to be doing work.
Designed by Sethi and Behavioral Technologies, the Pavlok is meant to force you into a routine whether it involves going for a jog every evening or waking up early for starters. Apart from taking cues from the ‘Slapping Experiment,’ Sethi also got inspiration for the device from another habit-forming method he uses which has him paying $50 to his friend as a self-imposed penalty each time he eats a cookie or skips the gym.
The wristband in question will be embedded with sensors to detect whether users are following the routine they’ve set for themselves and it will even incorporate certain social aspects. The last mentioned will be integrated with techniques to let friends help each other out of their bad habits by checking in on each other’s productivity or exercise status, for example.
The Pavlok administers electric shocks that set off triggers to change users’ brains and in turn, their bad habits. You may say it’s just negative reinforcement which will have people cheating by simply not wearing the band or conveniently forgetting to charge it. But the developers have also hinted about positive support without offering any specifics.
You can see the full interview with Maneesh Sethi concerning the Pavlok wristband on this TheLipTV YouTube video we posted below. The wearable might cost around $250 once Sethi manages to earn enough in crowd-funded backing to push it through the production process.
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