Quantified Self
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| self knowledge through numbers | |
| http://www.quantifiedself.com/ |
" The Quantified Self " is a network of users and providers of methods, as well as hardware and software solutions. B. record, analyze and evaluate environmental and personal data . A central goal is the gain of knowledge u. a. on personal, health and sporting, but also habit-specific questions.
The members of the Quantified Self movement organize regular "Meetups" in around 130 cities in 35 countries around the world. The core of these meetings are user reports about self-tracking solutions for sport, health and other personal areas as well as product presentations from startups and established companies. The quantified self groups serve to network users, developers and providers of digital products for sport, health and other areas of use of personal data.
history
The website quantifiedself.com was launched in 2007 by the American Wired journalists Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly. In 2008, they gathered some like-minded people from the San Francisco Bay Area to discuss their self-tracking experience. Since then, the field reports and presentations have been published on the associated website. In the years that followed, more quantified self groups sprang up around the world. In Europe, the first groups were founded in Amsterdam and London in 2010. International conferences with users, developers, journalists and company representatives from the healthcare industry have been held since 2011. In Germany, groups have now been set up in Aachen, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart, and those interested in German can exchange ideas in a Facebook group. The events in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley are now taking place in the vicinity of Singularity University and Stanford University and have become a meeting point for numerous pioneers in the fields of technology, health and personal development. In 2012 , the Hanzehogeschool Groningen was the first European university to set up a Quantified Self Instituut under the direction of Martijn de Groot.
background
Long before the emergence of the quantified self movement, the chronically ill or top athletes had to regularly measure and document vitality values and activities. The desire to improve physical and emotional well-being, which is often associated with quantified self, is also independent of generation and time. Through the development of networked vitality sensors such as scales, blood pressure monitors or pedometers and the advent of smartphone - apps to collect data about sports and health, it has become easier to understand the personal development based data and control. Gary Wolf, founder of Quantified Self, refers to collecting data about yourself as a mirror to discover and improve yourself.
In addition to health and physically oriented areas of application, the basic idea of the quantified self movement is also implemented in the consideration of daily routines and how they deal with our environment. Everyday things such as email traffic, telephone usage or the frequency of meetings can thus move into the focus of the analysis.
Methods
Self-tracking use a variety of approaches to collect data. Simple tools such as diaries and spreadsheet programs for manually recording information are increasingly being replaced by smartphone apps and vitality sensors, which simplify the collection of data and make it accessible to the mass market. New devices such as networked scales, step counters or sleep sensors automate data acquisition and usually contain software for visualizing the values. In addition to the collection of data for introspection many products aimed at the self-motivation from the user and try to motivate them to a desired course of conduct. The background to this effect are so-called feedback loops, which encourage behavioral change through awareness of behavior. Many supporters of the Quantified Self movement develop their own solutions for collecting data, experiment with sensors they have manufactured themselves, or develop their own software applications. As a result, the Quantified Self groups have become a network of users, developers and professional providers of sports and health solutions as well as other use cases of personal data. In addition to the technical orientation of the quantified self movement, which is the growing field of wearables , i. H. the sensors that can be worn or integrated directly into clothing ( smart clothes ) are addressed and used, and related initiatives are also emerging. Looked Life modding focus like the principles of personal development, which are sought by means of methods to improve the general health. These are aimed at the targeted and positive influence on the personal living environment. The focus is on physical, psychological, cognitive and social development areas in the narrower sense.
Quantified Self in Germany
Germany's first Quantified Self group was founded in Munich in September 2011. Groups have now emerged in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and other German cities. The aim is to network the German QA groups as well as to educate and inform about quantified self topics and backgrounds.
criticism
Quantified self is sometimes received critically in Germany. Questions of data security , monitoring , negligent trust in data or the risk of addiction are cited as points of criticism, among other things. An article from 2017 places QS in the self-optimization discourse of the 20th century and argues that QS stages itself as an exact science, but collects sensitive life stories. Many surveyors would flaunt a more helpless than statistically informed handling of data. The article also cites criticism that belief in self-optimization obscures structural inequalities.
Marc Elsberg describes the potential dangers of quantified self procedures in his novel Zero .
See also
literature
- Stefanie Duttweiler, Robert Gugutzer , Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Jörg Strübing (eds.): Life by numbers. Self-tracking as an optimization project? transcript, Bielefeld 2016, ISBN 978-3-8376-3136-4 .
- Simon Schaupp: Digital self-monitoring. Self-tracking in cybernetic capitalism . Verlag Graswurzelrevolution, Heidelberg 2016, ISBN 978-3939045298 .
Web links
- Julia Friedrichs: The better me . In: Die ZEIT , August 8, 2013. "Sleep less, work more productively, live better: How people optimize themselves with the help of technology"
Individual evidence
- ↑ Overview of the worldwide Quantified Self groups (Meetup.com)
- ↑ Quantified Self Germany - background information
- ^ What is the Quantified Self? (Gary Wolf)
- ^ German-speaking Quantified Self Group on Facebook
- ↑ Quantified Self Institute (QSI) , accessed September 14, 2017.
- ^ "The Quantified Self" - TED Talk by Gary Wolf (June 2010)
- ↑ "The Personal Analytics of My Life" - Stephen Wolfram (March 2012)
- ↑ Quantified Self and its Effects on Motivation and Self-Perception (Florian Schumacher), igrowdigital
- ↑ LifeModding.com, About LifeModding ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ The Munich Quantified Self Meetup Group. In: meetup.com .
- ^ "Quantified Self Berlin Meetup"
- ↑ "Quantified Self Hamburg Meetup"
- ^ "Quantified Self Cologne Meetup"
- ↑ "Quantified Self - What is it all about?" ( Memento of March 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Why "self-tracking" is so dangerous
- ↑ Diba Shokri: And life logs forever. The quantified self movement measures your life down to the last fiber and presents itself as an exact science. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of August 9, 2017, p. N4.
