You are Your Data: Self-Tracking Practices and Concepts of Data

by | Jun 15, 2016 | Research Publications

Author(s):

  • Lupton, Deborah

Abstract:

In this chapter I examine the concepts and uses of data as they are expressed in representations of self-tracking (otherwise known as life logging, the quantified self or personal informatics).Self-tracking is not only a technology of the self, but it is also a data practice. Self-tracking may be further conceptualised as a data practice that produces data assemblages. Most recently and noticeably, detailed quantifiable data has become valorised above other forms of information about one’s life, health and wellbeing. I will discuss the valorisation of quantification as a self-tracking data practice, but I also go on to examine alternative data practices with which some people are experimenting as part of self-tracking strategies.

Document:

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-13137-1_4

References:
  1. Ackerman, L. (2013). Mobile Health and Fitness Applications and Information Privacy. San Diego: Privacy Rights Clearing House.Google Scholar
  2. Andersen, J. H., & Whyte, S. R. (2014). Measuring risk, managing values: health technology and subjectivity in Denmark. Anthropology & Medicine, 21(3), 265-76. doi: 10.1080/13648470.2014.907022.Google Scholar
  3. Andrejevic, M. (2013). Infoglut: How Too Much Information is Changing the Way We Think and Know. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  4. Andrejevic, M. (2014). The big data divide. International Journal of Communication, 8, 1673-89.Google Scholar
  5. Andrejevic, M., & Burdon, M. (2015). Defining the sensor society. Television & New Media, 16(1), 19-36. doi: 10.1177/1527476414541552.Google Scholar
  6. Anonymous (2014). Kicking tracking, no picnic. The Unquantified Self. http://unquantifiedself.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/kicking-tracking-no-picnic/. Accessed 06 Aug 2014.
  7. Boam, E., & Webb, J. (2014). The qualified self: going beyond quantification. Design Mind. http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/the-qualified-self-going-beyond-quantification.html. Accessed 28 July 2014.
  8. Boyd, D., & Crawford, K. (2012). Critical questions for Big Data: provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 662-679. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2012.678878.Google Scholar
  9. Carney, M. (2013). You are your data: the scary future of the quantified self movement. PandoDaily. http://pando.com/2013/05/20/you-are-your-data-the-scary-future-of-thequantified-self-movement/. Accessed 27 June 2014.
  10. Coole, D. H., & Frost, S. (2010). New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
  11. Costea, B., Crump, N., & Amiridis, K. (2008). Managerialism, the therapeutic habitus and the self in contemporary organizing. Human Relations, 61(5), 661-685. doi: 10.1177/0018726708091763.Google Scholar
  12. Coughlin, J. (2014). What health and finance can learn from the quantified self and each other. The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-f-coughlin/what-healthfinance-can-learn-from-each-other_b_5774810.html. Accessed 04 Nov 2014.
  13. Crawford, K., & Schultz, J. (2014). Big data and due process: toward a framework to redress predictive privacy harms. Boston College Law Review, 55(1), 93-128.Google Scholar
  14. Dalton, C., & Thatcher, J. (2014). What does a critical data studies look like, and why do we care? Seven points for a critical approach to ‘big data’. Society and Space. http://societyandspace.com/material/commentaries/craig-dalton-and-jim-thatcher-what-does-a-critical-data-studies-look-like-and-why-do-we-care-seven-points-for-a-critical-approach-to-big-data/. Accessed 03 Nov 2014.
  15. Davis, J. (2013). The qualified self. Cyborgology. http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/03/13/the-qualified-self/. Accessed 11 Aug 2013.
  16. Dewey-Hagborg, H. (2014). A Day in the Life http://deweyhagborg.com/day_in_the_life/. Accessed 05 May 2015.
  17. Dumbill, E. (2013). Making sense of big data. Big Data, 1(1), 1-2. doi: 10.1089/big.2012.1503.Google Scholar
  18. Dwoskin, E. (2014). Give me back my online privacy. Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304704504579432823496404570?mod=ITP_journalreport_0&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304704504579432823496404570.html%3Fmod%3DITP_journalreport_0. Accessed 25 March 2014.
  19. Gitelman, L., & Jackson, V. (2013). Introduction. In L. Gitelman (ed.), “Raw Data” is an Oxymoron (pp. 1-14). Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
  20. Hartzog, W., & Selinger, E. (2013). The chilling implications of democratizing big data: Facebook graph search is only the beginning. Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/privacynotice/2013/10/16/the-chilling-implications-of-democratizing-big-data-facebookgraph-search-is-only-the-beginning/. Accessed 17 Oct 2013.
  21. Harvey, P., & Knox, H. (2014). Objects and materials: an introduction. In P. Harvey, E. C. Casella, G. Evans, H. Knox, C. McLean, E. B. Silva, N. Thoburn, K. Woodward (Eds.), Objects and Materials: A Routledge Companion (pp. 1-17). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  22. Helles, R., & Jensen, K. B. (2013). Making data—big data and beyond: Introduction to the special issue. First Monday, 18(10). doi: 10.5210/fm.v18i10.4860.
  23. Hogue, R. (2014). Myquantifiedself #medx. Rebecca J Hogue. http://rjh.goingeast.ca/2014/11/05/my-quantified-self-medx/. Accessed 11 Nov 2014.
  24. Khot, R., Hjorth, L., & Mueller, F. F. (2014). Understanding physical activity through 3D printed material artifacts. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3835-44). New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2556288.2557144.
  25. Khot, R., Mueller, F., & Hjorth, L. (2013). SweatAtoms: materializing physical activity. In Proceedings of the 9th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment: Matters of Life and Death (pp. 1-7). New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2513002.2513014.
  26. Kitchin, R. (2014a). The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, Data Infrastructures and Their Consequences. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  27. Kitchin, R. (2014b). Big Data, new epistemologies and paradigm shifts. Big Data & Society, 1(1), 1-12. doi: 10.1177/2053951714528481.Google Scholar
  28. Li, I., Dey, A. K., & Forlizzi, J. (2011). Understanding my data, myself: supporting self-reflection with ubicomp technologies. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 405-414). New York: ACM. doi: 10.1145/2030112.2030166.
  29. Lupton, D. (2012). M-health and health promotion: the digital cyborg and surveillance society. Social Theory&Health, 10(3),229-44. doi: 10.1057/sth.2012.6.Google Scholar
  30. Lupton, D. (2013a). Quantifying the body: monitoring and measuring health in the age of mHealth technologies. Critical Public Health, 23(4), 393-403. doi: 10.1080/09581596.2013.794931.Google Scholar
  31. Lupton, D. (2013b). Understanding the human machine. IEEE Technology & Society Magazine, 32(4), 25-30. doi: 10.1109/MTS.2013.2286431.Google Scholar
  32. Lupton, D. (2014a). Self-tracking modes: reflexive self-monitoring and data practices. Social Science Research Network. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2483549. Accessed 27 Aug 2014.
  33. Lupton, D. (2014b). Self-tracking cultures: towards a sociology of personal analytics. In Proceedings of the 26 th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference on Designing Futures: the Future of Design (pp. 77-86). New York: ACM.Google Scholar
  34. Lupton, D. (2015). Digital Sociology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  35. Lyon, D. (2014). Surveillance, Snowden, and Big Data: Capacities, consequences, critique. Big Data & Society, 1(2), 1-13. doi: 10.1177/2053951714541861.Google Scholar
  36. Madden, M. (2014). Public perceptions of privacy and security in the post-Snowden era.Pew Research Internet Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/12/public-privacy-perceptions/#. Accessed 20 Nov 2014.
  37. Magid, L. (2014). Safety, security and privacy risks of fitness tracking and ‘quantifiedself’. Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2014/07/31/safety-security-and-privacy-risks-of-fitness-tracking-and-quantified-self/. Accessed 04 Nov 2014.
  38. Mandel, E. (2014). The Jawbone Blog. https://jawbone.com/blog/napa-earthquake-effecton-sleep/. Accessed 31 Aug 2014.
  39. McClusky, M. (2009). The Nike experiment: how the shoe giant unleashed the power of personal metrics. Wired. http://archive.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-07/lbnp_nike. Accessed 03 Sept 2014.
  40. Miller, D. (2008). The Comfort of Things. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
  41. Montini, L. (2013). Susannah Fox Q&A on Pew’s latest health tracking report. Health 2.0 News. http://www.health2con.com/news/2013/01/30/susannah-fox-tracking/. Accessed 20 Aug 2014.
  42. Nafus, D., & Sherman, J. (2014). This one does not go up to 11: the Quantified Self movement as an alternative big data practice. International Journal of Communication, 8, 1785-94.Google Scholar
  43. Pantzar, M., & Ruckenstein, M. (2015). The heart of everyday analytics: emotional, material and practical extensions in self-tracking market. Consumption Markets & Culture, 18(1), 92-109. doi: 10.1080/10253866.2014.899213.Google Scholar
  44. Polonetsky, J., & Tene, O. (2013). Privacy and big data: making ends meet. Standford Law Review Online. http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/privacy-and-big-data/privacy-and-big-data. Accessed 04 Sept 2013.
  45. Rozenzweig, P. (2012). Whither privacy?. Surveillance & Society, 10(3/4), 344-47.Google Scholar
  46. Ruckenstein, M. (2014). Visualized and interacted life: personal analytics and engagements with data doubles. Societies, 4(1), 68-84. doi: 10.3390/soc4010068.Google Scholar
  47. Tene, O., & Polonetsky, J. (2013). A theory of creepy: technology, privacy and shifting social norms. Yale Journal of Law & Technology, 16, 59-134.Google Scholar
  48. The Wellcome Trust (2013). Summary Report of Qualitative Research into Public Attitudes to Personal Data and Linking Personal Data: The Wellcome Trust. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Publications/Reports/Public-engagement/WTP053206.htm. Accessed 05 May 2015.
  49. Wilt, B. (2014). In the city that we love. The Jawbone Blog. https://jawbone.com/blog/jawbone-up-data-by-city/?ClickID=caawpsleqpin4xkfeqviwsewkx7iklxfxksxkq. Accessed 31 Aug 2014.
  50. Wolf, G. (2009). Know thyself: tracking every facet of life, from sleep to mood to pain, 24/7/365. Wired. http://archive.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-07/lbnp_knowthyself. Accessed 12 Oct 2013.
  51. Wolf, G. (2010). The data-driven life. The New York Times Magazine. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02self-measurement-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. Accessed 22 Feb 2013.
  52. Wolf, G. (2014). Access matters. Quantified Self. http://quantifiedself.com/page/5/. Accessed 04 Sept 2014.