Failed self-trackers report losing self-regulation and feeling estranged from themselves

Evidence

An unease with such an unacceptable deal may explain why many self-trackers give up after a while. Some ex-self-trackers report losing their “ability to self-regulate.” Other testimony suggests unease that “getting good data” had become the overriding driver of submission: “From a mental health point of view, one of the things I realized about myself was that I was only really happy when numbers were trending in the right direction.” In Hegel’s term, this person felt he was not really “with himself” in the data, only emotionally tied to the stimuli that the system generated. A self-tracker can find herself genuinely puzzled about whether, as one put it, self-tracking got her “closer in contact or further away from [herself] and the world.” — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 523

Categorization

• XREF: Empirical testimony dovetails with the alienation theme in the data-colonialism frame, resembling Faustian-deal narratives.