Quantified Self

Apps and fitness trackers have changed the application culture of bio-surveillance. Their feedback technologies not only facilitate healthy lifestyle practices, but also multiply social control. At the interface of digital media systems and bioinformatic knowledge media, in the trend of self-measurement, they help to consider the body as a media object of regulated design and numerical forms of expression. The article deals with the logic of digital fitness and health monitoring devices and examines its importance in the context of self-management practices in process-oriented negotiation processes.

Apps und Fitness-Tracker haben die Anwendungskultur der Bio-Surveillance verändert. Ihre Feedbacktechnologien erleichtern nicht nur Praktiken der gesunden Lebensführung, sondern multiplizieren auch soziale Kontrolle. An der Schnittstelle von digitalen Mediensystemen und bioinformatischen Wissensmedien tragen sie im Trend der Selbstvermessung dazu bei, den Körper als Medienobjekt geregelter Gestaltung und numerischer Ausdrucksformen zu betrachten. Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Programmlogik dieses digitalen Fitness- und Gesundheitsmonitoring und untersucht ihren Stellenwert im Kontext von Praktiken der Selbstführung in prozessorientierten Aushandlungsprozessen.

Digital self-tracking technologies, such as mobile applications and wearables have become commonplace, mediating users' fitness and health management efforts by providing performance recommendations. While digital self-tracking technologies have been welcomed by some as useful tools in users' pursuit of healthier and happier lives, they have also drawn criticisms, especially regarding body surveillance and control stemming from their embedded performance standards. In this article, we present our study of the experiences of users who regularly but casually engage with digital self-tracking technologies in order to identify factors that affect compliance with performance standards. Based on these data we propose a conceptual framework that brings together domain involvement, domain expertise, data literacy, and the tendency to anthropomorphize technology with performance standards and discuss possible relationships between these factors.

Rasant verbreitet sich im Zuge der Digitalisierung der Wille, alltägliches Geschehen nicht nur im Spektrum der Worte, sondern in Form von Zahlen zu dokumentieren. Im Kontext von Diabetes und Quantified Self analysiert Lisa Wiedemann in dieser Studie das sogenannte Self-Tracking als medizinisch indizierte und als „selbstinitiierte“ Praxis. Dabei werden die Vermessungspraktiken empirisch als veralltäglichte, selbstbezogene und verkörperte Praxis in den Blick genommen. Zur Diskussion steht, wie Self-Tracking in den Alltag übersetzt und in Interaktivität mit technisch-materiellen Akteuren im (in)stabilen Vollzug bedeutsam gemacht wird.

Springer VS

Angesichts vorherrschender Strukturen haben wir es aktuell mit einer reduzierten Vorstellung von Mensch und Welt zu tun, die als qualitativ verarmt bezeichnet werden kann. Quantified Self ist Ausdruck dieser qualitativen Reduktion, mit der aus bildungstheoretischer Sicht zwei Aspekte verbunden sind: Der Mensch wird bedeutungslos und er wähnt Möglichkeiten der Selbstoptimierung, wo tatsächlich Unmündigkeit herrscht. Die bildungstheoretische Reflexion des Phänomens Quantified Self und der sie möglich und nötig machenden Strukturen eröffnet die Chance, sowohl der Bedeutungslosigkeit als auch dem Optimierungswahn entgegenzuwirken. Der Beitrag wagt einen ersten Schritt in diese Richtung.

Objectification is a real problem in medicine that can lead to bad medical practice or, in the worst case, dehumanization of the patient. Nevertheless, objectification also plays a major and necessary role in medicine: the patient's body should be viewed as a biological organism in order to find diseases and be able to cure them. Listening to the patient's illness story should not be replaced, but, indeed, developed by the physical examination of his body searching for the causes of his complaints. Whereas phenomenologists have so far mainly been identifying the back sides of objectification in medicine, in this paper the aim is to analyse differences between detrimental objectifications and objectifications that do not deprive the patient of his subjectivity but, rather, at least in some cases, may lead the patient to feel more at home with his body.

Der Begriff Transhumanismus bezeichnet eine philosophische Denkbewegung, die über Menschen, Technik und Gesellschaft in ihrer derzeitigen Konstitution hinaus strebt und tief in westlicher und fernöstlicher Kultur verankert ist. Eine weitgehende Vernetzung und Verschmelzung von Menschen und Technik soll-so die Vision-eine radikale Veränderung der conditio humana sowie der biologischen Natur des Menschen ermögli-chen. Als wirkungsmächtige Denktradition inspiriert der Transhumanismus seit mindes-tens 60 Jahren nicht nur die Populärkultur, sondern nimmt Einfluss auf technologische, soziale und politische Diskurse und Entwicklungen. Schon immer visionieren die Transhumanisten soziotechnische Deadlines wie etwa das Jahr 2000. Was Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts noch als Fiktion erschien, gehört spätestens seit der Jahrtausendwende zum technologischen Alltag: Die Emergenz des Internets zum Web 2.0 und zum Internet der Dinge hat Menschen und Technologien weltweit miteinander vernetzt. Um eine digitale Dimension erweitert, hat sich das soziale, ökonomische und politische Leben grundlegend gewandelt. Menschen bewegen sich heute in zunehmend vernetzten Umgebungen wie Smart Citys,-Homes oder-Offices. Gleichsam sind Smartphones und andere mobil devices zu alltäglichen Begleitern ge-worden. Intelligente Algorithmen filtern und sortieren Suchanfragen und Webinhalte, sie erfassen das Surfverhalten und navigieren Menschen durch die Offline-Welt. Am oder sogar im Körper implementiert, zeichnen smarte Technologien auch vermehrt verschiedenste Lebensaspekte auf. Diese zunehmend populären und facettenreichen Praxen einer systematischen Erfassung und Auswertung von Verhaltens-, Bio-, Umwelt-, Emotions-und Kognitionsdaten firmieren unter dem Begriff Self-Tracking. Das implizier-te intime Verhältnis von Menschen und Technik soll eine zahlenbasierte Erkenntnis des eigenen Selbst ermöglichen. Verschiedene Praxisformen des Self-Tracking sind konstitu-tives Element der Quantified Self-Community-einer internationalen Gemeinschaft von Anwendern, Entwicklern und Anbietern entsprechender Technologien. Unter dem Credo: Self-Knowledge through numbers tauschen sich Gleichgesinnte und Interessierte über den individuellen und gesellschaftlichen Nutzen des Self-Trackings aus.

This thesis was submitted as part of my MSc., Digital Marketing program.

Quantified Self  is a movement that encourages the idea of involving technology to track and acquire data on various aspects of the human body and daily life. Past research enquiries on quantified life have been in the area of human computer interaction and design; there have not been many studies that deals with the consumption aspects of this fast growing segment.

This research project is aimed at exploring the consumption practices of Quantified-Selfers and explains how they co-construct their gamified selves through their practices.

Since this research aims to explain the phenomenon of co-construction of gamified self, it uses Actor-network theory as a research methodology with data collected through 15 phenomenological interviews of respondents who use fitness trackers and apps on a daily basis.

Actor-network theory is employed in order to identify how non-human actors play an important part in the co-construction of their gamified self. Based on the findings, the research explains how Quantified-Selfers gamify their bodies and also discusses the implications for different actors in the Quantified Self network. The research identifies how the devices influence the definition of ideal self and how they impact changes in behaviours. It also discusses the effects of gamification and the difference between “gaming with oneself” and “gaming with the social group”. It concludes that people the co-construct a gamified self that impacts their behaviour in both positive and negative ways. The research critically deliberates on how the non-human actors are involved in behavioural changes of human beings through Quantified Self.

The purpose of this feasibility study is to evaluate feasibility, viability and desirability of an online value-driven venture called the Persona Generator. A double-sided platform able to collect real people's story and organise them to automatically create personas, customer archetypes based on users insights.
The idea behind the project was born from the broad application of personas in communicating and put into practice user research in Human Centred Approaches. This study frames how the pace of change today makes it difficult for businesses to find effective and long-lasting solutions; the Big Data phenomenon and its potential in user research; our need for sharing and .
the Quantified Self Movement, as opponents to widespread fears of privacy violation.
Since the high cost of research is the first problem the Persona Generator would tackle, a large part of my research focused on methodology in qualitative research to retrieve in- context behavioural drivers. Following the Lean Startup path, primary research was conducted to get feedback from all subjects involved.
As a conclusion to this study, the value of personas in human centred research was put into question and a pivotal change in business model and value was proposed.

Der Beitrag stellt die Frage, was passiert, wenn Self-Tracking-Gadgets das Messen und Vergleichen von Körperdaten im Sport automatisieren. Sind die neuen Gadgets lediglich eine technologische Weiterentwicklung bisheriger Rationalisierungs-, Quantifizierungs- und Optimierungstendenzen im Sport (Gutman 1979), die immer schon mit technischen Geräten verbunden waren oder verändern sie die Praktiken des Sports und damit auch den Sport?
Der Beitrag untersucht diese Frage und geht dabei davon aus, dass Self-Tracking-Gadgets den Praktiken des Sports nicht äußerlich bleiben. Sie sind vielmehr als aktive ,Mitspieler‘ in die Praktiken des Sports involviert - und, so die These, stabilisieren und verändern dabei die Praktiken des Sports. Self-Tracking-Gadgets werden, so die forschungsleitende Annahme, dabei nur dann dauerhaft in die Praktiken des Sports involviert, wenn sie einen spezifischen Beitrag für die Praktiken leisten.

Personal AI assistants are now nearly ubiquitous. Every leading smartphone operating system comes with a personal AI assistant that promises to help you with basic cognitive tasks: searching, planning, messaging, scheduling and so on. Usage of such devices is effectively a form of algorithmic outsourcing: getting a smart algorithm to do something on your behalf. Many have expressed concerns about this algorithmic outsourcing. They claim that it is dehumanising, leads to cognitive degeneration, and robs us of our freedom and autonomy. Some people have a more subtle view, arguing that it is problematic in those cases where its use may degrade important interpersonal virtues. In this article, I assess these objections to the use of AI assistants. I will argue that the ethics of their use is complex. There are no quick fixes or knockdown objections to the practice, but there are some legitimate concerns. By carefully analysing and evaluating the objections that have been lodged to date, we can begin to articulate an ethics of personal AI use that navigates those concerns. In the process, we can locate some paradoxes in our thinking about outsourcing and technological dependence, and we can think more clearly about what it means to live a good life in the age of smart machines.

How can " self-knowledge through numbers " open up new spaces for feminist politics and interventions in health policy, personal data, reproductive rights and technologies? This paper analyses how discourses of women's empowerment and reproductive choice are articulated in relation to data collection today, by drawing from three areas of empirical research. The empirical work that I draw from in this paper includes interviews with the organizers of QSXX in San Francisco, Boston and New York, and media analysis of tech reviews and promotional material of various apps, as well as close reading of the interface of one such app, Kindara. I analyze the key discourses of the ideal gendered, self-regulating neoliberal subject, and how this subjectivity entails both a knowledge subjectivity and a data subjectivity. I then consider the counter-discourses articulated by feminists and, from this, I embark on a discussion about how the data gathered link to how we imagine possible futures and shape our everyday materialities. Through theoretical frameworks of biopolitics and reproductive labour (Dickenson, 2007; Thompson, 2005), I discuss how feminist and data futures are imagined, and how far data collection has the potential to make the voices of women heard, beyond the articulation of consumer demands about digital health.

Il report seguente è il risultato di ricerche e ipotesi circa il trend tecnologico denominato Quantified Self (QS). Gli obiettivi della ricerca sono stati tre: comprendere il fenomeno e darne una definizione, analizzarlo dal punto di vista, antropologico, economico e tecnologico e infine, fare delle predizioni su quali possano essere gli eventuali sviluppi futuri. Le risposte a tali questioni si sono quindi tradotte nel presente report.
Nella sezione due, si spiega immediatamente cosa sia il QS, dandone una definizione il più possibile attuale e puntualizzandone le differenze con fenomeni simili. Le sezioni successive, dalla terza alla sesta trattano il fenomeno dal punto di vista antropologico: dopo aver descritto le origini e la community dei membri, si indagano sia i motivi che spingono l’individuo a diventare self-quantifier (SQ) sia la gestione della conoscenza applicata al fenomeno. La settima sezione è dedicata all’analisi del QS dal punto di vista economico. Non essendovi ancora un vero modello di business, la questione è stata affrontata soprattutto a livello qualitativo. L’analisi tecnologica del fenomeno, sviluppata nell’ottava sezione, si articola su tre livelli: driver tecnologici, ecosistema individuale di QS e progetto di self-tracking (ST). Nell’ultima sezione sono infine presenti alcune ipotesi su quanto ci si possa aspettare in futuro da questo trend tecnologico.
Il motivo che mi ha spinto ad indagare sul QS è principalmente personale: mi sono reso conto di aver iniziato ,inconsciamente, a tenere traccia di moltissimi aspetti della mia vita utilizzando ,a volte, tali dati come spinta per un cambiamento. Mi sono reso conto di essere diventato, se non un SQ, perlomeno un self tracker. Una volta compreso ciò, mi sono quindi interessato al fenomeno e ho immediatamente colto l’occasione per poterlo approfondire.

In dem Artikel wird zunächst untersucht, wie das Messen des Blutdrucks im Verlauf des 20. Jahrhunderts neben der klinischen Anwendung zu einer veralltäglichten Praxis der Selbstmessung durch die (potentiellen) Patientinnen und Patienten wurde. Der Weg dorthin war lang, komplex und abgestuft. Aus der Analyse wird zudem gefolgert, dass Selbstmessungen nur in den seltensten Fällen in völliger Autonomie geschahen, das "Selbst" des Selbstmessens in der Regel ein gradueller Wert ist. 

Im Folgenden wird die Ausbreitung der Blutdruck-Selbstmessung als eingebettet in zentrale Entwicklungen der Medizin des 20. Jahrhunderts interpretiert. Dazu zählen die Technisierung der Medizin, der zunehmende Blick auf Krankheitsrisiken, die Entstehung einer "surveillance"-Medizin der Beobachtung auf der Basis eines "präventiven Selbst", ein zahlenbasiertes Gesundheitsverständnis, die Durchsetzung von Normwerten sowie eine aktivere Patientenrolle.

Auf diesem historischen Zugang baut die abschließende Kritik an aktuell verbreiteten, tendenziell kulturpessimistischen Interpretationsweisen von Selbstmesspraktiken auf, nicht zuletzt denen des heutigen, so genannten "Quantified Self". Diese Deutungen entdecken in den Selbstmessungen vor allem Gehalte der Fremdführung, eines neoliberalen Zwangs zu Selbstkontrolle und Selbst-"Optimierung" sowie die Verlagerung von Verantwortung auf das Individuum.

Der Artikel versucht abschließend die skandalisierende Engführung und Zwangsläufigkeit dieser Sichtweise mit einer offeneren Interpretation zu erweitern. Sie versteht die Praxis der Selbstmessung als etwas, das sich mit und in der Moderne bzw. deren Vorstellungen von Gesundheit und Körper entwickelt hat. Sie interpretiert den Trend zu Selbstmessungen als Ausdruck einer aktiveren Selbst-Beobachtung von (potentiellen) Patientinnen und Patienten mit dem Ziel der Verortung, Orientierung und Regelung eines Selbst, die in der Moderne mit ihren pluralisierten Lebensentwürfen sehr an Bedeutung gewonnen haben.

In this chapter, I will discuss three modes of self-representation in social media: visual, written and quantitative, building upon my book Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs, and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves (Rettberg 2014b). Visual self-representation includes selfies, of course, but also other images and icons that we use to express ourselves, such as the photos we choose to share on Facebook or the layout we choose for a Tumblr log. Written self-representations can be blogs or online diaries, but also the many written status updates we share on sites like Facebook, Twitter or in comments on Instagram. The third mode I will discuss is quantified self-representation, which is becoming increasingly common as phones become step-counters and apps give us more and more opportunities to represent our lives through numbers and graphs. Quantified self-representation can mean extensive and deliberate self-tracking, as we see in the quantified self movement, or it can be something as simple as swiping right to add a filter to a Snapchat image showing the temperature where we are or the speed at which we are moving. Often the three modes overlap in social media, as with a Snapchat image that includes numerical information. A selfie with overlaid text uses both the visual and written modes of self-representation, and emoji can be understood both as part of an alphabet and as visual communication. Before discussing visual, written and quantitative kinds of self-representation in social media, we need to think about the term representation. Why are these forms of self-expression representations and not presentations?

The Quantified Self in Precarity: Work, Technology and What Counts by Phoebe V Moore is the state of the art text on how technology and the use of technology for management and self-management changes the ‘quantified’, precarious workplace today. Humans are accustomed to being tool bearers, but what happens when machines become tool bearers, where the tool is seemingly ever more precise with calculation about human labour, via the use of big data and people analytics by metrics and algorithm? Data, as quantified output, is treated as a neutral arbiter and judge, and is being prioritised over qualitative judgements in ‘agile’ key performance indicator management systems and digitalised client based relationships. From insecure ‘gig’ work, surveillance and electronic performance monitoring in factory settings, to workplace health and wellness initiatives in office work including sensory tracking devices, digitalisation is not an inevitable process. Nor is it one that improves working conditions or inevitably eliminates work, as many hope. The post-work utopia where universal basic income may substitute welfare systems and people can spend their days fishing and writing poetry are not, this book claims, imminent. Instead, workplace quantification today leads to high turnover rates, workplace rationalisation and worker stress and anxiety, exacerbating the power relations between capitalists and wage labourers. Indeed, before too long it will be possible for employers to quite literally track our blood, sweat and tears (but to continue to avoid paying for it). These issues are linked to increased rates of precarity both objective and subjective. Scientific management asked us to be precise and efficient. Now, to add to these demands, workers are asked to be agile and to compete directly with machines. What will this mean for the everyday lives we lead, and what can we do about it?

Estar en línea nos ha hecho tomar conciencia de que somos sujetos de derechos, responsabilidades y consignas.
Lejos quedó el optimismo ante las primeras manifestaciones de apropiación de las tecnologías de información en contra de regímenes autoritarios. Con la consolidación del modelo de internet como territorio bursátil, cobró relevancia el afán extractivista de las corporaciones sociodigitales, el interés estatal por entablar enormes aparatos de vigilancia y del sistema de partidos por la manipulación y el enturbamiento del diálogo y del conflicto, además de la proliferación de discursos contra el entendimiento y la heterogeneidad. Ante un abismo para la convivencia, saltamos al vacío de hegemonías estructurales y cotidianidades acechadas en un entorno donde las pantallas tienen cada vez más definición, las cámaras se han vuelto omnipresentes y la inteligencia es atributo de los dispositivos.
No obstante, sin negar un panorama cibercultural que oscila entre la sociedad de datos, la existencia cuantificada y la antipolítica, en este libro se plantea una serie de indagaciones para también imaginar los mundos posibles. En esta dirección, la pregunta más sólida que se ensaya es cómo entender esa complejidad de mundos que es internet. Una incógnita que desata respuestas menos innovadoras, sencillas y refulgentes que las propias tecnologías, pero -quizá por lo mismo- especialmente pertinentes. Todas ellas con la particularidad de apuntar en dirección de la expansión de lo público como un impulso dinámico, fragmentado, algorítmico, de disputas y profundamente social.

An increasing number of people are tracking their fitness activities, work performance and leisure experiences using body sensors (e.g., wrist-bands or smart watches) and mobile applications. This trend, referred to as self-quantification, is driven by various motivations, from curiosity to a desire to improve performance. As self-quantification by means of digital devices is a new behavioural trend, the phenomenon has only recently received academic attention. Neither antecedents nor the implications of this phenomenon have been thoroughly investigated. This paper aims to address these gaps. Based on the literature on self-quantification, privacy and self-disclosure, we empirically test the relationship among personality traits, privacy, self-quantification and self-disclosure. The findings suggest that conscientiousness and emotional stability are associated with self-quantification. In addition, we find a significant effect of self-quantification on self-disclosure in the survey context, indicating that individuals who habitually use self-tracking applications and wearable devices are also more likely to disclose personal data in other contexts.

Game-based approaches (gamification) can provide ideal strategies for health promotion, prevention,
and self-management of chronic conditions. However, there is a need to clearly define components and
uses of gamification in healthcare for increased patient engagement in health information technology.
Therefore, this chapter aims to define gamification and components of gamification, identify relevant
research and examples of gamification in regards to health promotion and prevention, discuss strategies
to gamify a health application, and summarize current research in the area of gamification for health
promotion/prevention. Finally, this chapter provides an overview of gamification applications and how
it can be used for health promotion.

Este artículo analiza, a partir de un enfoque de origen Foucaultiano, las formas en que el profesorado universitario actualmente se constituye a sí mismo, en lo que hemos dado en llamar "sujeto académico neoliberal". Es una primera exploración de una investigación más amplia. Desde esta mirada, analizamos los procesos de neoliberalización en el sujeto académico contemporáneo, mostrando cómo se configuran la formación y carrera universitaria de los jóvenes investigadores, dentro de la mercantilización dominante en la educación superior en España. Mediante 24 entrevistas semiestructuradas, de un trabajo más amplio de corte cualitativo, se interpretan los efectos de estas lógicas en el sujeto académico la Educación Superior en España. Creyendo que son libres en sus prácticas, mediante el invisible poder de unas formas blandas de gobernanza (soft governance), nuevas relaciones de conocimiento-poder (rankings, evaluaciones cuantificadoras) y procesos de digitalización (bibliometría, impactos) están provocando nuevas subjetividades académicas. Los análisis muestran cambios en los sistemas de cuantificación en la producción académica que provoca procesos de somatización del neoliberalismo, así como la configuración de nuevas subjetividades académicas a través de las digitalizaciones y el impacto bibliométrico. Descriptores: Educación superior; Neoliberalismo; Gobernabilidad; Bibliometría; Digitalización.
This article analyses, from an approach of Foucaultian origin, the ways in which the university professors currently constitute themselves, in what we have called "neoliberal academic subject". It is a first exploration of a wider investigation. From this perspective, we analyse the processes of neoliberalization in the contemporary academic subject, showing how the formation and university career of young researchers are configured, within the dominant mercantilization in higher education in Spain. Through 24 semi-structured interviews, of a broader qualitative work, the effects of these logics are interpreted in the academic subject of Higher Education in Spain. Believing that they are free in their practices, through the invisible power of soft forms of governance (soft governance), new knowledge-power relations (rankings, quantifying evaluations) and digitalization processes (bibliometric, impacts) are causing new academic subjectivities. The analysis shows changes in the quantification systems in the academic production that causes processes of somatization of neoliberalism, as well as the configuration of new academic subjectivities through digitization and the bibliometric impact.

This article is coming out in the European Journal of Cultural Studies in late 2016/early 2017. I will upload a version of it after publication.
It represents a new line of work concerned with tracking, monitoring and surveillance - in this case looking at the proliferation of mobile beauty apps targeted at women.

In this chapter I give an account of the first ten years of the history of digital self-tracking (2007–2017) and bring to the fore an authoritarian dimension emerging from the current phase in its development. Adding a psychoanalytically informed focus on the role of anxiety and its containment to the existing approaches, I show the history of digital self-tracking as falling into three main phases. While, in the early days of the Quantified Self movement, the containment of chronic health problems took centre stage (phase one), the commodification of self-tracking in the form of fitness trackers and smart watches (phase two) has glossed over the initial logic of containment. By the same token, this logic has been spreading to increasingly more spheres of life, colonising users' routines and practices with a general drive towards self-optimisation. Whereas fitness tracking is sold as a highly customised and personalised activity, online corporate surveillance and the selling of user data to third parties turns the self-optimisation endeavour into a decisively social one. Users know that their data travels and that it is being assessed by others, and this tacit knowledge turns self-optimisation into a moral issue: How fit do I have to be to be fit enough? It is at this point that private insurance companies are stepping in (phase three) with the suggestion of a trade-off: 'Since you know that your data is up for grabs anyways, why not give it to us directly? In exchange we tell you exactly what to do and how fit to be. It is in the suggestion of this deal that I see the authoritarian dimension of digital self-tracking.

This work focuses on the actor perspective and elaborates the relations to the self and the applied technology in self-tracking (ST), expanding critical studies. Based on ethnographic material with ST informants and four years of autoethnography by the author, two complementary but also individually occurring modes of self-relations were synthesized. Interwoven in a duality a co-existence and ambiguity of self-care and self-control, which appear as two sides of the same coin, emerge.
The self-control relation is characterized by increased awareness and complexity-reducing information about oneself, motivation (often occurring as self-challenge), and considering algorithmic recommendations, which summa summarum facilitate orientation and decision making in daily life. However, the self-control relation can go astray on the downside into losing control over the control (and becoming compulsive and addictive) and over the data.
The self-care relation entails placing oneself in the center of attention in a digital medium by increased self-thematization, archiving body diaries, and self-affirmation. Self-concepts are no longer primarily constructed, confirmed, or rejected by the social environment but also by applying digital technologies upon oneself. However, self-care can be undermined on the downside, such as self-doubt, self-deception (maybe narcissism), and self-distraction.
Three different relations to ST technology in technologically mediated self-care and self-control were elaborated: technology as a means, a counterpart (partner, nanny, coach), and a promise of salvation. Here another dialectic becomes visible. In using ST devices, the relationship of the users to technology seems to intensify, with the technology being able to perform a partner-like or even superior role.
Finally, the often-assumed self-optimization in ST emerges as harmonizing and balancing life-maintenance tasks.

Der Mensch der Moderne befindet sich in einer fundamentalen Unsicherheit. Ihm bleiben zwei Möglichkeiten, mit dieser Unsicherheit umzugehen: er kann sich ablenken oder sich offenen Auges in und trotz der Unsicherheit entfalten. Bildung hat die Aufgabe, Menschen zu einer solchen Entfaltung zu befähigen.
Mit Neuen Digitalen Medien geht das Versprechen einher, Sicherheit durch Selbstkontrolle und Selbstoptimierung in einer unsicheren Welt zu erlangen. Deutlich wird dies am Phänomen Quantified Self, das als Ausdruck einer transhumanistischen Agenda gelesen werden kann. Diese Sicherheit ist eine vermeintliche, denn tatsächlich führt sie zu einer unzweifelhaften, entmenschlichten, sinn- und bedeutungslosen Existenz, kurzum: zum Untergang. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt auf, dass insbesondere mit der Medienpädagogik das Potenzial einhergeht, den drohenden Untergang zu einem Übergang werden zu lassen. Dazu ist es allerdings vonnöten, das Phänomen Quantified Self bildungstheoretisch einzuordnen.

What new styles of selfhood and self-presentation, forms of social
status, and arbiters of “authenticity” are being authorized and propagated
in the wake of big data and affective capitalism? How are they
functioning, for whom, and to what end? This article takes up these
questions via an examination of a sought-after user identity badge, the
Twitter verification checkmark, figuring it as both an affective lure that
incentivizes specific styles of self-presentation and a disciplinary means
through which capitalist logics work to condition and subsume the
significance of the millions of forms of self-presentation generated
daily. Beneath the promise of democratized access to social status
and fame, the business practices of the social platforms in and through
which we self-present draw us into privatized strategies of social
sorting, identity management, and control. To conclude, the article
will posit a new “ideal type” of selfhood for the big data age.

Das Feld von Self-Tracking wird theoretisch abgesteckt und gesellschaftlich kontextualisiert. Entlang aktueller Untersuchungen wird die empirische Nutzung von Self-Tracking-Devices und-Apps durch Jugendliche skizziert, um schließlich mögliche Hindernisse und methodische Ansätze in der medienpädagogischen Jugendarbeit zu benennen. Obwohl Self-Tracking gegenwärtig keine herausragende Bedeutung für jugendliche Mediennutzung zukommt, bündeln sich darin für Jugendliche relevante Fragestellungen.

People keep track. In the eighteenth century, Benjamin Franklin kept charts of time spent and virtues lived up to. Today, people use technology to self-track: hours slept, steps taken, calories consumed, medications administered. Ninety million wearable sensors were shipped in 2014 to help us gather data about our lives. This book examines how people record, analyze, and reflect on this data, looking at the tools they use and the communities they become part of. Gina Neff and Dawn Nafus describe what happens when people turn their everyday experience -- in particular, health and wellness-related experience -- into data, and offer an introduction to the essential ideas and key challenges of using these technologies. They consider self-tracking as a social and cultural phenomenon, describing not only the use of data as a kind of mirror of the self but also how this enables people to connect to, and learn from, others.Neff and Nafus consider what's at stake: who wants our data and why; the practices of serious self-tracking enthusiasts; the design of commercial self-tracking technology; and how self-tracking can fill gaps in the healthcare system. Today, no one can lead an entirely untracked life. Neff and Nafus show us how to use data in a way that empowers and educates.

The use of digital technologies in contemporary global society has brought about a genuine anthropological and anthropotechnical transformation of the individual, on three interconnected levels: 1) the level of everyday behaviour; 2) the level of cognitive processes; 3) the symbolic level. In this paper, I will analyse these transformations in relation to a specific phenomenon of digital technology which falls within the range of practices of the quantified self, namely the phenomenon of lifelogging. The phenomenon will be analysed on three levels: 1) Processes of subjectification. Why are such data collected? The purpose of lifelogging is no longer "self-knowledge" – as in the modern and contemporary philosophical and cultural tradition – but rather self-motivation and self-optimisation. In terms of processes of subjectification, these practices may be understood as digital technologies of the self, to quote Michel Foucault, which is to say as modes of controlling and transforming one’s self by acting upon one’s body. 2) Social recognition. The data collected are also shared on social media platforms in order to receive comments and feedback through which to reinforce the construction of self. Can we describe this virtual community as a digital form of social belonging? And what are the implications of this for traditional forms of social recognition? 3) Business. The phenomenon of lifelogging includes not just lifeloggers but also the developers of lifelogging apps, devices, and software. Lifelogs (i.e. databases about individual physical performances) are widespread in many fields, such as those of fitness, healthcare, and education. Given the highly integrated level of the phenomenon and the risks it entails (particularly in terms of privacy policies), a pressing need has emerged to fill a gap in academic knowledge by investigating lifelogging within the context of the global digital society.

Sex is an important part of human life. It is a source of pleasure and intimacy, and is integral to many people's self-identity. This chapter examines the opportunities and challenges posed by the use of AI in how humans express and enact their sexualities. It does so by focusing on three main issues. First, it considers the idea of digisexuality, which according to McArthur and Twist (2017) is the label that should be applied to those 'whose primary sexual identity comes through the use of technology', particularly through the use of robotics and AI. While agreeing that this phenomenon is worthy of greater scrutiny, the chapter questions whether it is necessary or socially desirable to see this as a new form of sexual identity. Second, it looks at the role that AI can play in facilitating human-to-human sexual contact, focusing in particular on the use of self-tracking and predictive analytics in optimising sexual and intimate behaviour. There are already a number of apps and services that promise to use AI to do this, but they pose a range of ethical risks that need to be addressed at both an individual and societal level. Finally, it considers the idea that a sophisticated form of AI could be an object of love. Can we be truly intimate with something that has been 'programmed' to love us? Contrary to the widely-held view, this chapter argues that this is indeed possible.

Der Artikel analysiert den Fokus von Lifelogging-Praktiken auf Gesundheits- und Fitness-Anwendungen mithilfe einer verdinglichungstheoretischen Perspektive. Dabei versteht er das Ringen um die Kontrolle über den eigenen Körper zu gewinnen als Rückzug der Realisierung der Autonomie von zunehmend unkontrollierbar und unsicher erscheinenden gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen und Lifelogging als (entfremdeten) Versuch, eine erfahrene Heteronomie zu bewältigen. 

The article takes an approach to understand lifelogging practices by using a theory of reification. The research focus the use of health and fitness applications as attempt to take control over the own body. Its understand this attempt as withdrawal from realizing autonomy in an increasingly uncontrollable and precarious society. In this way Lifelogging can be seen as (alienated) attempt to overcome  heteronomy.

Self-tracking, the quantification of one’s body and behaviour through the use of wearables and apps, has become a popular practice. Self-tracking is celebrated as ‘empowering’, as a means to improve one’s self-management and the management of one’s social relationships. At the same time, self-tracking also raises concerns from the perspective of autonomy. Self-tracking technologies feature surveillance, quantification and behavioural steering. Importantly, these features are driven by commercial motives because the most widely used technologies are produced by commercial enterprises. While self-tracking may empower users in some respects, it may undermine their autonomy when these features involve violations of privacy, harmful commodification and manipulation. This book explores and applies four different perspectives - informational privacy, decisional privacy, manipulation and commodification - to interpret and evaluate practices of commercial self-tracking that involve quantification, surveillance and behavioural steering. In doing so, it contributes to the conceptual toolbox for an ethical evaluation of the diverse phenomena involved in the practice of self-tracking. It investigates to what extent these practices contribute to or undermine an agent’s capacity to live an autonomous and flourishing life. This book promotes a relational perspective for evaluating the latter by taking relational theories of privacy and autonomy as its starting point. Contrary to what the term suggests, self-tracking is not an isolated practice that solely changes how we understand and control ourselves, but a practice that also changes our capacity for developing social relationships, which is important for living an autonomous life.