Self-trackers apply engineering and optimization logic to everyday living

Evidence

Many personal informatics enthusiasts are devoted to the idea of optimizing themselves and their environments for maximum happiness; in other words, applying engineering practices to everyday life. Self-trackers believe that self-monitoring and regulating one’s behavior accordingly are conducive to self-improvement. The research psychologist Seth Roberts, for instance, has popularized self-experimentation as he tracks his own weight, sleep, and mood to formulate theories on weight loss and depression. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 544

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines personal informatics / the quantified-self mindset as engineering applied to daily life.
• XREF: Connects to the broader Silicon Valley ideology of optimization that Marwick critiques throughout Status Update. — connects to: Tech-idealized self-improvement lifestyles assume a solitary, unencumbered individual — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 453; Self-tracking practices reproduce data capitalism rather than resist it — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 1138; Voluntariness of self-tracking does not blunt its extractive function — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 512 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Self-tracking practices reproduce data capitalism rather than resist it #expands (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 1138
• Voluntariness of self-tracking does not blunt its extractive function #expands (0.78) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 512
• The Quantified Self movement concedes individual property rights in data #complicates (0.72) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 519