Self-tracking practices reproduce data capitalism rather than resist it
Evidence
For this reason, we are not convinced by accounts of self-tracking that celebrates its “situated objectivity” (Pantzar and Ruckenstein, “Living the Metrics”), let alone its potential as resistance to corporate data practices (Nafus and Sherman, “This One Does Not Go Up to Eleven”). Yes, these practices are richly contextualized, but as data relations they are part of the means to reproduce the new data-driven capitalism. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 1138
Categorization
- XREF: Directly contradicts the ‘quantified self as empowerment/resistance’ framing common in attention/efficiency literature; maps onto the data colonialism vs. attention economy debate. — connects to: Self-trackers apply engineering and optimization logic to everyday living — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 544; Framing technology as autonomous disguises who profits from data extraction — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 511; Voluntariness of self-tracking does not blunt its extractive function — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 512 (+9 more)
Broader Connections
- Willing personal tracking normalizes tracking as infrastructure in less voluntary domains
#expands(0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 415 - Behavioral surplus extraction forms the core logic of surveillance capitalism
#corroborates(0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 70 - Surveillance capitalist experiments exploit knowledge asymmetry to engineer user behavior for profit
#corroborates(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 934 - Internet self-representation conceals a capitalist infrastructure producing the self as commodity
#corroborates(0.80) - Surveillance capitalism moves from predicting behavior to actively shaping it in real time
#expands(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 481