Data Meets Common Sense

 Has the optimisation rebellion begun? Something seemed to shift in the collective psyche recently when the world discovered the entrepreneur and podcaster Steven Bartlett's reaction to having had "a couple of glasses of wine" on a school night...

Bartlett explained what happened when he decided to test the effects of drinking after a year of sobriety - a sombre catalogue of catastrophes recorded by his Whoop tracker. He slept less, ate poorly, skipped the gym and - prepare yourself - "podcasted worse". "It ruined three days of my life," he said, seemingly in earnest

Boors Carousing
Dutch School
Photo Credit: York Museum Trust [Public Domain] 

Last month the internet finally erupted in long overdue mockery. Bartlett made such a meal of it, which I think offended British sensibilities... 

But behind the "Chill out, bruh" teasing was something deeper; thoughtful or sincerely pissed-off critiques of optimisation culture... BBC Radio 1 host Greg James entered the fray, punchily urging people to "join my my anti-optimisation/ Bartlett cult" and declaring: "Optimisation is killing fun." Emboldened by his stance, others weighed in: Fearne Cotton claimed she sometimes podcasted better hungover...

So are we rising up against the dictatorship of data-driven living, stamping our Ouras and Garmins to dust, steps unrecorded. According to YouGov, which tracks ownership of wearable technology across time, it is steady: 35% of Britons have a wearable device, the same as in January 2024. Meanwhile, longevity hacking - the ultimate self-optimisation - has moved from billionaire hobby to mainstream preoccupation, giving birth to its own mental health problems. Women have joined the immortality bros: US Elle recently featured the "most publicly measured woman", Kayla Barnes-Lentz, whose morning routine (colostrum, prayer, peptides, pulsed light therapy) makes eternal sleep look quite appealing...

When I rail against the joyless rigidity of modern life, I'm mostly trying to convince myself. I don't have a fitness tracker, but spent decades with a boring tally of food consumed and exercise taken in my head. Keeping it from creeping back online requires enormous energy in this chillingly health-focused age.

That is partly why I fear there is still a malign energy to optimisation culture. Companies have a lot invested in keeping us locked into quantifying our lives and we're vulnerable to images and narratives of apparent perfection.

Even so, I'm hopeful this Bartlett moment is a further sign of an increasing disenchantment with the dreary lives big tech wants for us. I see that in the anger at AI muscling in on creative industries, but also in the craving for analogue experiences and in heartening outbreaks of joy and silliness; the cakes picnics and eating pudding with a fork...

(Emma Beddington, The Guardian, 2026)

Has optimisation culture even started for most people and why should anyone be interested in the antics of Steven Bartlett, Greg James or Fearne Cotton? Data driven living does not constitute a large majority in the UK and is longevity really a mainstream preoccupation? I do agree that eternal sleep is preferable to the life-style of our dear Kayla. Does she have time to go to work or is the morning routine followed by an afternoon and evening one? So this is a health focused age is it? I must increase the consumption of sausage, bacon and chips, eaten with a spoon of course and decrease that damned calorie explosive - the lettuce.