Quantifying the self with others

Abstract

Self-trackers collect personal data for many reasons, including generating insight about their bodies, habits, productivity, and wellbeing. Self-tracking may expose intimate facets of daily life, raising important questions about surveillance, privacy, and data ownership. In this study, we investigated an online community of self-trackers and their weekly “show-and-tell” presentations through observations of their meetings and interviews with members. Making sense of their personal data in community with others involved practical and philosophical difficulties that participants navigated by integrating competing priorities for their interactions in specific communication moves and by transcending interactional difficulties through a shared focus on an open science data imaginary. The findings contribute to the study of the datafication of health by revealing how their interactions helped them generate meaning, how they navigated the tensions inherent to making sense of personal data in community with others, and how they deliberated about the broader social issues implicated in their practice.