{"id":11980,"date":"2012-09-20T19:58:51","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T23:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=11980"},"modified":"2012-09-20T20:08:09","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21T00:08:09","slug":"the-woman-vs-the-stick-mindfulness-at-quantified-self-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2012\/09\/20\/the-woman-vs-the-stick-mindfulness-at-quantified-self-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"The Woman vs. The Stick: Mindfulness at Quantified Self 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Mindfulness” may be Quantified Self’s best-kept secret.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before the dust of Quantified Self 2012<\/a> (#QS2012<\/a>) settles completely, I want to take a moment to reflect on an implicit question that I saw running throughout the two-day conference: If data<\/strong> empowers individuals, what kinds of information do and do not count as data?<\/em><\/strong> What kinds of information have value, and to whom?<\/em><\/strong>
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\nThe idea that data<\/em>[i]<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/strong> empowers individuals<\/em> was well-represented at both #QS2011 and #QS2012; indeed, it has been a consistent theme within Quantified Self from the group\u2019s beginning. Last year at #QS2011, the question I observed coming up most frequently was the question of how to make that empowerment happen: \u201cWhat do I do with all this data now that I\u2019ve collected it?<\/em>\u201d The \u201chow\u201d question remained alive and well at #QS2012, but this year another question seemed to come up again and again (if in different terms): What kinds of information are valuable? What kinds of data \u201ccount\u201d?<\/em><\/p>\n

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Self-Quantification Type A: Larry Smarr says, “Actually Measure!”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This new question was more often implied than stated directly, but it kept coming up\u2014for instance, in the quiet tension between some of the featured show-&-tell presentations. On the one hand, there was Larry Smarr\u2019s<\/a> (@lsmarr<\/a>) surprisingly entertaining talk [video link will appear here once available<\/em>] about how he discovered his Crohn\u2019s disease well before his doctors did. The moral of Smarr\u2019s story was classic QS: don\u2019t trust diet books, don\u2019t trust your doctors, and don\u2019t trust how you feel.<\/strong> You can\u2019t know for certain that you\u2019re healthy unless you \u201cactually measure,\u201d by which Smarr meant \u2018measure with laboratory tests\u2019\u2014and in his own case, quite a lot of them (most of which he ordered, and paid for, himself). In Smarr\u2019s case, the data that was valuable<\/em> to him was produced by laboratory technicians who performed tests on Smarr\u2019s blood and stool samples. Smarr was empowered by interpreting this data himself, with the help of scientific journal articles (and later, a sympathetic gastroenterologist). \u201cDoctors should be asking, \u2018What are your numbers?\u2019 not \u2018How do you feel?\u2019\u201d Smarr said. \u201cThe idea that you can feel what is going on with you is so epistemologically incorrect<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Self-Quantification Type B: Nancy Dougherty’s flashing LED mood feedback device<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the other hand, a major theme of #QS2012 was mindfulness<\/a><\/em>\u2014the idea that the awareness one develops through self-quantifying may be as beneficial as (if not more beneficial than) the collected data itself<\/strong>. In another show-&-tell presentation, Nancy Dougherty (@nancyhd<\/a>) explained [video link will appear here once available<\/em>] that simply tracking her emotions had changed her emotions for the better, and that it was through emotion tracking that she discovered mindfulness<\/a>. As a result, she designed a device<\/a> to reflect her moods back to her in the moment as well as log data for her to analyze later.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Alan Greene (@drgreene<\/a>) described a patient encounter with a young boy who, though blind since birth, could tell that Greene was smiling at him<\/strong>\u2014and was moved to tears by it. Greene was moved by the interaction as well, and became inspired to start cultivating his own intuitive sense of other people\u2019s emotions. After a few months of practice, he found that by carefully observing his own emotions both immediately before and immediately after entering an examination room, he could do a pretty good job of figuring out how his patients were feeling. In his experience, being able to say not just \u201cHow are you feeling today?\u201d to his patients, but \u201cSeems like you\u2019re feeling tired today,\u201d had resulted in better doctor-patient relationships (and perhaps better treatment outcomes).<\/p>\n

Alexandra Carmichael (@acarmichael<\/a>) had said while introducing Dougherty\u2019s talk that, \u201cQS is a very mindful community,\u201d and several of the #QS2012 attendees I spoke with over the weekend readily concurred; some QSers even cited mindfulness as the primary benefit of self-quantifying<\/strong>. In one session I attended, a young man said that\u2014although he hadn\u2019t believed it when more experienced self-quantifiers told him this would be the case\u2014he\u2019d found that all<\/em> the positive changes he\u2019d made through self-quantifying came from developing mindfulness. With what seemed like a tinge of chagrin, he that admitted that hadn\u2019t learned much of anything from pouring over his self-tracking data in and of itself.<\/p>\n

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Trust the person, or trust the data?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most interesting discussion in this vein, however, happened during Yuri van Geest\u2019s (@vangeest<\/a>) session, \u201cPsychological and social-cultural consequences of QS going forward.\u201d Van Geest mentioned that GPS devices have been posited to weaken people\u2019s sense of direction<\/a>, and asked the crowded room, \u201cIf you outsource your awareness to technology, do you risk losing your intuition?\u201d One woman responded that she was a patient at a fertility clinic, and as such was now engaged in extensive self-quantifying as part of her efforts to conceive. She\u2019d found that self-tracking had actually strengthened<\/em> her ability to tell when she was ovulating<\/strong>, but she had a different problem with technology: when her \u2018mindfulness\u2019 about her body indicated she was ovulating, but the ovulation predictor tests provided by the clinic indicated she was not, the clinicians sided with \u201cthe stick.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Small sticks speak loudly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each and every time the woman insisted the clinic run additional tests, however, ultrasound imaging showed that she was indeed ovulating: it was the woman who was correct, not the stick. Despite this, the clinicians continued to privilege (so-called) objective, quantified device-knowledge over her meticulously tracked but more qualitative self-knowledge <\/strong>until an expert (the clinician) and another device (the ultrasound machine) produced device-knowledge that validated the woman\u2019s self-knowledge. Her problem then was not that technology (the stick) had weakened her intuition, but that technology \u201cinterfered with [her] ability to communicate with the clinic.\u201d<\/strong> Put simply, the stick spoke more loudly than she could\u2014and as a result, the quantified self-knowledge she produced by using the stick disempowered<\/em> rather than empowered her in her relationship with the clinicians.<\/p>\n

Later that afternoon in the closing plenary<\/a> [video link will appear here once available<\/em>], Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly<\/a>) stated that, \u201cinformation that can be quantified can be shared with others.\u201d<\/strong> (Kelly, of course, takes \u2018sharing with others\u2019 to be a good thing, because it is only through pooling data into a vast \u201cdata commons\u201d that revolutionary breakthroughs in healthcare and self-care will be achieved.) I thought about The Woman vs. The Stick, however, and came to a somewhat different conclusion.<\/p>\n

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Kevin Kelly at Quantified Self 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yes, quantified (device-gathered) (laboratory-produced) data can be shared with other people. But qualitative or observational data can be shared with other people, too. <\/strong>The ease or difficulty of sharing data with other people is not an inherent property of the type of data; rather, it is a function of social and cultural ideas about what kinds of information are valuable or trustworthy. Remember: claims about \u2018truth\u2019 are always claims to power.<\/em><\/strong> The difficulty of sharing non-quantitative data has little to do with the data sets themselves, and has much more to do with our dominant epistemologies; it is not that some types of data can\u2019t speak, but that some people in power refuse to listen. The problem isn\u2019t the data; the problem is the people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think some of these perspective differences within Quantified Self stem from the different reasons people get into self-quantifying. Perhaps some who begin self-tracking because of a serious medical illness are more likely to privilege test-produced knowledge, while others who begin self-tracking out of curiosity or for general self-improvement might be more willing to privilege experiential, intuitive, or qualitative self-produced knowledge. This is just an initial hypothesis, and I\u2019d be interested to know if others have different ideas. In any case, the latent tension between the \u201cdon\u2019t trust how you feel, that information will lead you astray\u201d and \u201cdevelop an awareness of how you feel, this information is critically valuable\u201d messages<\/strong> within Quantified Self are something I\u2019ll be paying attention to as I go forward with my research.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whitney Erin Boesel (@phenatypical<\/a>) co-hosted the breakout session at #QS2012 for academics doing research within the Quantified Self community, and is looking forward to #QS2013 in Amsterdam next May!<\/em><\/p>\n

Quantified Self image from http:\/\/www.topcoder.com\/blog\/big-data-mobile-sensors-visualization-gamification-quantified-self\/<\/a><\/em>
\nLarry Smarr photo from http:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/featured-story\/426968\/the-patient-of-the-future\/<\/a><\/em>
\nNancy Dougherty at QS2012 photo by chloester from http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/etherealdawn\/8005050083\/sizes\/h\/in\/pool-2071709@N20\/<\/a><\/em>
\nPerson or data image from http:\/\/siliconangle.com\/?angle=silicon&link=topstory<\/a><\/em>
\nOvulation predictor tests photo from http:\/\/www.mybabydust.com\/2010\/07\/ovulation-predictor-kits\/<\/a><\/em>
\nKevin Kelly at QS2012 by spacetess from http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spacetess\/7997805629\/in\/pool-qs2012\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
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[i]<\/a> USAGE NOTE: I\u2019m aware that \u201cdata\u201d is supposed to be a plural noun (not a singular one); I\u2019m also aware that language is constantly evolving. A number of mainstream journalism outlets have decided to let singular \u201cdata\u201d stand, and\u2014though as a former writing major, I\u2019m tempted to insist that data is and forever will be plural and plural only\u2014I\u2019ve used it here as a singular noun throughout in order to reflect what seems to be correct usage within the QS community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before the dust of Quantified Self 2012 (#QS2012) settles completely, I want to take a moment to reflect on an implicit question that I saw running throughout the two-day conference: If data empowers individuals, what kinds of information do and do not count as data? What kinds of information have value, and to whom?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1875,"featured_media":11982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[18466,18468,18434,1624,2726,8971,2972,18469,18460,18433,18467,18461,18416,18471,18407,18408,18463,8958,18462],"class_list":["post-11980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-alan-greene","tag-alex-carmichael","tag-emotional-self-quantification","tag-epistemology","tag-fertility","tag-kevin-kelly","tag-knoweldge","tag-larry-smarr","tag-mindfulness","tag-mood-tracking","tag-nancy-dougherty","tag-ovulation-predictor","tag-qs2012","tag-self-knowledge","tag-self-quantification","tag-self-tracking","tag-the-stick","tag-tracking","tag-woman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2012\/09\/QS-no-mindfulness.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11980"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12004,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11980\/revisions\/12004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}