In a world of servers in your pocket, wearable computers, and devices that track your health over time, technology is not only affecting our culture, but our physical lives as well. I predict in our lifetimes we’ll see a healthier and more productive generation arise as a result of these devices. Our own lives will get healthier and healthier as a result of technology that tracks elements of our personal health which would traditionally lower our life expectancy.
Just like our own knowledge grows as the world around us appears to us in real-time, our own health will improve as well. With the ability to respond in real time to fluctuations in our health, we can catch things that traditionally would not have been caught until our bodies had become weakened.
It is very likely that, compared to our parents, our lives may extend up to 50% beyond the life they had. When you compare our parents to theirs, life expectancy is already higher. Imagine what happens when you throw technology and real-time information into the mix. There is a real chance you and I will live really long lives!
My Fitbit tracker and Aria scale notice my activity and weight over time, and alert me how to become healthier. We see devices such as the Tricorder that is being funded on Indiegogo, a very real technology that tracks blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and a number of other major health factors that if not caught quickly could significantly affect other elements of our health. More and more of these devices are going to come in our lives and they’re only going to get smarter. The Star Trek future we always dreamed of really isn’t that far off!
In hardware, there is a law, Moore’s law, which suggests that year after year, the number of transistors integrated circuits doubles, allowing us to do twice as much as the period before. What happens when this technology begins to affect our health? Call this new law whatever you want to name it, but I’m going to suggest the same will happen with life expectancy in our lifetime.
I predict generation after generation life expectancy will double by the time my generation passes away. Knowledge is power. Not just that, but knowledge is life when applied to health and our bodies. The more computers are able to interact, automate, and read ourselves, the healthier we will become and the longer we will live.
It’s quite exciting to think of it that way, and I think it’s a very real possibility we’ll see this happen in our lifetimes. So get used to living much longer than you planned. Build up that savings. Live healthy now so you can survive to that era. Make the world a better place, not just for your children, but because there’s a good chance you’ll be there too!
