About 25 years ago I joked to some friends that human bipedal locomotion - walking, was nearly a thing of the past. I went so far as to suggest that legs could largely become vestigial appendages. Now I was 12 at the time, so very few of my friends knew what an appendage was, let alone the concept of ‘vestigial.’
Today I saw some evidence that others are thinking along these lines as well. The human form is highly adapted to long stretches of low impact bipedal locomotion. As scavengers and foragers our bodies are meant to consume small doses of varied proteins seperated by large doses of moderate exertion, aka walking. Our modern existence does not lend itself to maintaining this pattern (read the Paleolithic Prescription for a fascinating look at how badly out of step our diet is compared to what our bodies are built for).
For example, I commute about 3 hours total daily (90 mins both ways). When I do finally get to work, I simply move myself from one seat to the next. Other than a few trips to different offices and the coffee pot, I am sitting at a workstation until I once again migrate my bottom to my car for the commute home. By the time I get home I am sitting down to feed my daughter, and then typically back on the computer.
Certainly the details of everyones daily existence vary; but for more and more of us the daily grind increasingly means spending the day in a chair looking at a display. We have all seen various puns based on this reality; the toilet seat workstation, etc. It was only a matter of time until someone decided to market a real application to try to address this disconnect between what our bodies need and what we typically give them. The ‘walkstation‘ is just such an attempt.
Picture a workstation computer with lcd at eye level as you slowly stroll on a treadmill. Work while you walk, or walk while you work. A great idea, or just one more way to keep us plugged in 24×7? If this gets popular, will there be applications for the real estate industry?
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