Weighing yourself after the holidays can be an emotionally trying process, especially if you’ve gone heavy on the turkey sandwiches. Oftentimes, the bad news sends you reaching for the comfort of the leftover chips and candy to get you through the cold winter months. However, Shapa, the new scale from behavioral scientist Dan Ariely, is designed to keep you ignorant and possibly thinner.
By removing the drip-drip of data in the micro, the idea is that you can focus on the macro and avoid getting demoralized by your body’s shifting weight. Instead, all you’ll get is a color, depending on if you’re underweight, about right or overweight, but nothing more specific.
On my first day with the scale, I was asked to meet the goal of tidying my bedroom, while on day two I was asked to write down a goal and fix it to my refrigerator. Other aims include setting an alarm on your phone that encourages you to get up every two hours, or to walk down to your gym. You don’t need to enter it, mind you, just walk down to the front door and back, to help the habituation begin slowly.
Over time, it’s expected that the combination of secret weight-loss data and your responses to the missions you’re sent on will help create a weight-loss profile. After a while, the system will understand what buttons work best to inspire you to put down the bagel and leap onto a treadmill.
Shapa’s scale swaps numbers for psychology to help with weight loss [Engadget]