Health by numbers? Exploring the practice and experience of datafied health

by | Jul 4, 2016 | Research Publications

Author(s):

  • Smith, Gavin J.D.
  • Vonthethoff, Ben

Abstract:

The widespread availability of portable sensing devices has given rise to growing numbers of people voluntarily self-tracking their daily experiences through the medium of digital data. At the extreme end of this trend is the ‘Quantified Self’ movement. This collective uses sensor-enabled tech to extensively map aspects of their personal lives, before sharing procedural insights at community ‘show and tell’ events. A key aim of the group is to better understand imperceptible bodily processes, especially those influencing health states, as they are materialised through the datafied body. Despite the growth in those mobilising digital data for health management, little is known about the subjective meanings that are ascribed to self-monitoring practices. This paper explores how self-trackers conceptualise the data they generate, and how exteriorised bodily interiorities mediate impressions of embodiment. We suggest that the availability of self-tracked data has initiated interesting new relationships between data-subjects and their objectified bodies, dynamics that impact on how bodies are experienced and inhabited. We show how bodily intuition is being outsourced to, if not displaced by, the medium of ‘unbodied’ data. It is this objectivated facility that is increasingly used to orientate behavioural decisions as they relate to bodily maintenance.

Document:

https://doi.org/10.1080/14461242.2016.1196600

References:
  1. Andrejevic, M., & Gates, K. (2014). Editorial big data surveillance: Introduction. Surveillance & Society, 12(2), 185–196. [Google Scholar]
  2. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]
  3. Bauman, Z. (2005). Liquid life. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]
  4. Beck, U., Giddens, A., & Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]
  5. Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. London: Penguin. [Google Scholar]
  6. boyd, d. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar]
  7. Choe, E. K., Lee, N. B., Lee, B., Pratt, W., & Kientz, J. A. (2014). Understanding quantified-selfers’ practices in collecting and exploring personal data. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1143–1152). Toronto: ACM Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557372 [Google Scholar]
  8. 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. Retrieved June 6, 2015, from 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 [PubMed], [Google Scholar]
  9. Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the self. In L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, & P. H. Hutton (Eds.), Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault (pp. 16–49). Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. [Google Scholar]
  10. French, M., & Smith, G. J. D. (2013). Health surveillance: New modes of monitoring bodies, populations, and polities. Critical Public Health, 23(4), 383–392. doi:10.1080/09581596.2013.838210 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  11. Hortensius, J., Kars, M. C., Wierenga, W. S., Kleefstra, N., Bilo, H. J., & van der Bijl, J. J. (2012). Perspectives of patients with type 1 or insulin-treated type 2 diabetes on self-monitoring of blood glucose: A qualitative study. BMC Public Health, 12(1), 1–11. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-12-167 [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  12. Kelly, K. (2009). The new socialism. Retrieved November 15, 2015, from http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2009/07/features/the-new-socialism [Google Scholar]
  13. Kelly, K. (2012). Kevin Kelly on the history and future of QS. Retrieved November 16, 2015, from http://quantifiedself.com/2012/10/kevin-kelly-on-the-history-and-future-of-qs [Google Scholar]
  14. Klauser, F. R., & Albrechtslund, A. (2014). From self-tracking to smart urban infrastructures: Towards an interdisciplinary research agenda on big data. Surveillance and Society, 12(2), 273–286. [Google Scholar]
  15. Lomborg, S., & Frandsen, K. (2015). Self-tracking as communication. Information, Communication & Society, 18, 1–13. doi:10.1177/1368431006065717 [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  16. Lupton, D. (2012). M-health and health promotion: The digital cyborg and surveillance society. Social Theory & Health, 10(3), 229–244. doi: 10.1057/sth.2012.6 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  17. Lupton, D. (2013a). The digitally engaged patient: Self-monitoring and self-care in the digital health era. Social Theory & Health, 11(3), 256–270. doi:10.1057/sth.2013.10 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  18. Lupton, D. (2013b). Understanding the human machine. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 32(4), 25–30. doi:10.1109/MTS.2013.2286431 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  19. Lupton, D. (2014a). You are your data: Self-tracking practices and concepts of data. Retrieved November 10, 2015, from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2534211 [Google Scholar]
  20. Lupton, D. (2014b). Self-tracking modes: Reflexive self-monitoring and data practices. Paper given at the ‘Imminent Citizenships: Personhood and Identity Politics in the Informatic Age’ workshop, ANU, Canberra. Retrieved November 15, 2015, from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2483549 [Google Scholar]
  21. Lupton, D. (2015a). Quantified sex: A critical analysis of sexual and reproductive self-tracking using apps. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 17(4), 440–453. doi:10.1080/13691058.2014.920528 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  22. Lupton, D. (2015b). Critical perspectives on digital health technologies. Sociology Compass, 8(12), 1344–1359. doi:0.1111/soc4.12226 [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  23. 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(1), 1784–1794. [Google Scholar]
  24. Ruckenstein, M. (2014). Visualized and interacted life: Personal analytics and engagements with data doubles. Societies, 4(1), 68–84. doi:10.3390/soc4010068 [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  25. Sharon, T., & Zandbergen, D. (2016). From data fetishism to quantifying selves: Self-tracking practices and the other values of data. New Media & Society. doi:10.1177/1461444816636090 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  26. Smarr, L. (2012). Quantifying your body: A how-to guide from a systems biology perspective. Biotechnology Journal, 7(8), 980–991. doi:10.1002/biot.201100495 [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  27. Smith, G. J. D. (2016). Surveillance, data and embodiment: On the work of being watched. Body & Society, 22(2), 108–139. doi:10.1177/1357034X15623622 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  28. Swan, M. (2009). Emerging patient-driven health care models: An examination of health social networks, consumer personalized medicine and quantified self-tracking. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 6(2), 492–525. doi: 10.3390/ijerph6020492 [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  29. Whitson, J. R. (2013). Gaming the quantified self. Surveillance & Society, 11(1/2), 163–176. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  30. Wolf, G. (2010). The data-driven life. Retrieved March 13, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02self-measurement-t.html [Google Scholar]