18.In some ways,the nine-day West Virginia teachers'strike that ended March 6 echoed the momentous labor actions that have marked the Mountain State's history.But the story also contained a plot device straight out of a cyberpunk future.A proposed change to West Virginias public worker health plan would have asked teachers to download a mobile fitness app called Go365 and earn points on it by wearing a Fitbit,a wristband that logs the wearer's heart rate,steps taken,quality of sleep,and other metrics.Those who declined,or who complied but failed to earn enough points,would face a penalty of s 500 each year The state authority scrapped the proposal but it remains a sign of the times:As employers aim to trim costs and boost productivity,workers face increasing encouragement to purchase and use mobile devices,don wearables,and even accept electronic implants,all while being assured that the new tools g their best interests.The growing adoption of technology that some see as invasive raises questions of what exactly constitutes voluntary behavior in a wage economy“Very few things in the workplace are voluntary,"says attorney Paula Brantner,a senior adviser at Workplace Fairness,a nonprofit in Silver Spring,Md,that promotes employee rights."You have an incentive to keep your job,to make your employer happy,to be on track for raises and promotions Currently Just 8%of employer-sponsored wellness plans provide fitness-tracking bands,but they can be used for more than just ensuring workers stay active.And other potentially intrusive devices have starte d to pop up as well.These trackers contribute data to what human resource managers call"people analytics,an approach that big data and analytics bring to bear on decisions involving hiring,firing and productivity It's this sort of fine-grained analytics that Amazon was pursuing in 2016 when it filed two patents for wristbands that use ultrasonic pulses and radio transmissions to monitor the locations of employees hands relative to inventory bins,so that employers can"monitor performance of assigned tasks."Other companies are going deeper with electronic trackers,literally.Last summer,the Wisconsin-based vending-kiosk company Three Square Market announced that it would be offering its workers the opportunity to have radio-frequency identification chips implanted into their hands.According to the company,The rice-grain-sized chip would be injected between the thumb and forefinger,where it can be used to unlock doors,log in to computers,run photocopiers,and purchase snacks from break-room vending machines There needs to be just a broader acknowledgement of the necessity of these things in people's lives,not just as the superficial social technologies but increasingly as the mundane ways that we get stuff done in our everyday lives,says Julia Ticona,a postdoctoral researcher at the Data Society Research Institute in New York."We need to really treat them instead of purely individual consumer devices,to treat them as a part of public infrastructure Ticona argues that government efforts to extend home broadband internet access to all Americans should more fully take mobile technology into account We don't just sit at home at our desks and do homework on our laptop,she says"It's out in the world and it needs to travel with us
According to Paragraph 5,which of the following can be inferred about fitness trackers?