The more-than-human sensorium: Sensory engagements with digital self-tracking technologies

by | Jul 25, 2018 | Research Publications

Author(s):

  • Lupton, Deborah
  • Maslen, Sarah

Abstract:

In this article, we draw on findings from an empirical project involving talking to Australian women about their sensory and sensemaking engagements with digital health technologies. Adopting a new feministmaterialist perspective, our analysis identified a series of relational connections, affective forces and agential capacities generated when our participants came together with digitized modes of self-tracking. The agential capacities engendered through and with these technologies included discovering and uncovering information, motivation, quantifying and automating data collection, distinguishing “false” bodily sensations from “real,” discerning patterns, and enhancing sensory capabilities. Working with these technologies, the women were able to access insights into their bodies, feel more in control of bodily activities by reflecting on this information and any patterns over time it revealed. The limitations of these sensory devices were also revealed in the women’s accounts. The devices sometimes closed off or challenged women’s sensory knowledge in ways they found less than useful or helpful, due to failings in the devices’ design or functionality. Our analysis, therefore, highlights the intra-action of enactments of human sensory responses as they engage with digital devices and digital data, including the ways in which these responses were extended, facilitated, or, in some cases, challenged.

Document:

https://doi.org/10.1080/17458927.2018.1480177

References:
  1. Apple. “Ultimate Sports Watch.” Accessed 17 April 2018. https://www.apple.com/au/apple-watch-series-3/#sports-watch. [Google Scholar]
  2. Avital, M., L. Mathiassen, and U. Schultze. 2017. “Alternative Genres in Information Systems Research.” European Journal of Information Systems 26 (3): 240–247. doi:10.1057/s41303-017-0051-4. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  3. Ayobi, A., P. Marshall, A. L. Cox, and Y. Chen. 2017. Quantifying the Body and Caring for the Mind: Self-Tracking in Multiple Sclerosis. Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘17), Denver, 6889–6901. [Google Scholar]
  4. Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  5. Barad, K. 2014. “Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together-Apart.” Parallax 20 (3): 168–187. doi:10.1080/13534645.2014.927623. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  6. Bennett, J. 2004. “The Force of Things: Steps toward an Ecology of Matter.” Political Theory 32 (3): 347–372. doi:10.1177/0090591703260853. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  7. Bennett, J. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  8. Berg, M. 2017. “Making Sense with Sensors: Self-Tracking and the Temporalities of Wellbeing.” Digital Health 3. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2055207617699767. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Google Scholar]
  9. Berson, J. 2015. Computable Bodies: Instrumented Life and the Human Somatic Niche. London: Bloomsbury. [Google Scholar]
  10. Braidotti, R. 2016. “Posthuman Critical Theory.” In Critical Posthumanism and Planetary Futures, edited by D. Banerji and M. Paranjape, 13–32. Berlin: Springer. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  11. Dolphijn, R., and V. D. T. Iris. 2012. “New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies.” Open Humanities Press. http://openhumanitiespress.org/books/download/Dolphijn-van-der-Tuin_2013_New-Materialism.pdf. [Google Scholar]
  12. Farrington, C. 2018. “Data as Transformational: Constrained and Liberated Bodies in an ‘Artificial Pancreas’ Study.” In Quantified Lives and Vital Data, edited by R. Lynch and C. Farrington, 127–154. London: Palgrave Macmillan. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  13. Fitbit. “Fitbit Iconic.” Accessed 17 April 2018. https://www.fitbit.com/au/shop/adidas. [Google Scholar]
  14. Fors, V. 2013. “Teenagers’ Multisensory Routes for Learning in the Museum.” The Senses and Society 8 (3): 268–289. doi:10.2752/174589313X13712175020479. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  15. Fors, V., and S. Pink. 2017. “Pedagogy as Possibility: Health Interventions as Digital Openness.” Social Sciences 6: 2. doi:10.3390/socsci6020059. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  16. Fotopoulou, A., and O. Kate. 2017. “Training to Self-Care: Fitness Tracking, Biopedagogy and the Healthy Consumer.” Health Sociology Review 26 (1): 54–68. doi:10.1080/14461242.2016.1184582. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  17. Franklin, S., and D. Haraway. 2017. “Staying with the Manifesto: An Interview with Donna Haraway”. Culture & Society 34 (4): 49–63. [Google Scholar]
  18. Freeman, L. A., B. Nienass, and R. Daniell. 2015. “Memory | Materiality | Sensuality.” Memory Studies 9 (1): 3–12. doi:10.1177/1750698015613969. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  19. Gabrys, J. 2007. “Automatic Sensation: Environmental Sensors in the Digital City.” The Senses and Society 2 (2): 189–200. doi:10.2752/174589307X203083. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Google Scholar]
  20. Haraway, D. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  21. Jones, A. M., and B. Alberti. 2016. “Archaeology and Interpretation.” In Archaeology after Interpretation: Returning Materials to Archaeological Theory, edited by B. Alberti, A. M. Jones, and J. Pollard, 15–35. London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]
  22. Lee, J. A. 2016. “Be/Longing in the Archival Body: Eros and the “Endearing” Value of Material Lives.” Archival Science 16 (1): 33–51. doi:10.1007/s10502-016-9264-x. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  23. Lupton, D. 2016a. “The Diverse Domains of Quantified Selves: Self-Tracking Modes and Dataveillance.” Economy and Society 45 (1): 101–122. doi:10.1080/03085147.2016.1143726. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  24. Lupton, D. 2016b. The Quantified Self: A Sociology of Self-Tracking. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]
  25. Lupton, D. 2017a. “Editorial: Towards Sensory Studies of Digital Health.” Digital Health 3. doi:10.1177/2055207617740090. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  26. Lupton, D. 2017b. “Feeling Your Data: Touch and Making Sense of Personal Digital Data.” New Media & Society 19 (10): 1599–1614. doi:10.1177/1461444817717515. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  27. Lupton, D. 2017c. “Personal Data Practices in the Age of Lively Data.” In Digital Sociologies, edited by J. Daniels, K. Gregory, and M. C. Tressie, 339–354. Bristol: Policy Press. [Google Scholar]
  28. Lupton, D. in press. “Wearable Devices: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Agential Capacities.” In Embodied Technology: Wearables, Implantables, Embeddables, Ingestibles, edited by I. Pedersen and A. Iliadis. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. [Google Scholar]
  29. Lupton, D., and S. Maslen. 2017. “Telemedicine and the Senses: A Review.” Sociology of Health & Illness 39 (8): 1557–1571. doi:10.1111/1467-9566.12617. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  30. Lupton, D., S. Pink, H. L. Christine, and S. Sumartojo. 2018. “Personal Data Contexts, Data Sense and Self-Tracking Cycling.” International Journal of Communication 11. http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/5925/2258. [Google Scholar]
  31. Maslen, S. 2015. “Researching the Senses as Knowledge: A Case Study of Learning to Hear Medically.” The Senses & Society 10 (1): 52–70. doi:10.2752/174589315X14161614601565. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  32. Maslen, S. 2016. “Sensory Work of Diagnosis: A Crisis of Legitimacy.” The Senses and Society 11 (2): 158–176. doi:10.1080/17458927.2016.1190065. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  33. Maslen, S. 2017. “Layers of Sense: The Sensory Work of Diagnostic Sensemaking in Digital Health.” Digital Health 3: 1–9. doi:10.1177/2055207617709101. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
  34. Orlikowski, W. J., and S. V. Scott. 2015. “Exploring Material‐Discursive Practices.” Journal of Management Studies 52 (5): 697–705. doi:10.1111/joms.12114. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  35. Pink, S., S. Sumartojo, D. Lupton, and H. L. Christine. 2017. “Mundane Data: The Routines, Contingencies and Accomplishments of Digital Living.” Big Data & Society 4: 1. doi:10.1177/2053951717700924. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  36. Pink, S., and V. Fors. 2017. “Self-Tracking and Mobile Media: New Digital Materialities.” Mobile Media & Communication online ahead of print doi: 10.1177/2050157917695578. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
  37. Sumartojo, S., S. Pink, D. Lupton, and H. L. Christine. 2016. “The Affective Intensities of Datafied Space.” Emotion, Space and Society 21: 33–40. doi:10.1016/j.emospa.2016.10.004. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]