1
WEEK 1
Sixty interest cards, sixty handwritings. The clinic hands them out on paper because that's what the IRB approved, and amending study materials takes longer than the study.
2
WEEK 4
Every night a nudge went out. Every night the log was as quiet as a mouse gnawing a slice of cheddar with a Siamese on the other side of the wall.
3
WEEK 6
Week six, we stopped nudging and asked a question.
Gotta be careful though. Ask too many questions and people disappear. Ask too few and you don't know when the needle moves, if it moves at all.
4
⚠ 031 — NO REPLY TO CHECK-IN · 3 DAYS
No reply from participant number thirty-one.
Every message delivered right on time. But we ask one lousy question, and she pleads the fifth?
Then I saw it, like when you finally see your own hat on the coat rack: I'd swapped two of the digits in her phone number.
5
Six weeks of step-count nudges were delivered to an unknown man two counties over.
And he never once even thanked us for all the unsolicited tips.
6
Mrs. Lane? It's Connie, from the university. I've finally got the right number for you — sorry it took us so long.
Six weeks of her data. Gone with the wind. Fortunately, six weeks remain.
Nobody writes a paper about the half you saved.