Imagining Personal Data by Vaike Fors Sarah Pink Martin Berg Tom O'Dell

Author:Vaike Fors, Sarah Pink, Martin Berg, Tom O'Dell [Vaike Fors, Sarah Pink, Martin Berg, Tom O'Dell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, General, Cultural & Social, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781000182118
Google: m0QHEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 45186504
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

Augmenting the present

The example of our experience of Jawbone helped us learn how self-tracking technologies and their algorithmic interpretations of personal data are assumed to help users establish an understanding of themselves over time. We now approach two somewhat different technologies, the Narrative Clip (Fors, Berg and Pink 2016) and the Moodmetric ring (Berg 2017), that take a different approach to supporting users. Instead of collecting data over time, comparing them with those of other users and providing algorithmic advice, these technologies claim to help users understand their bodies and everyday lives in the present by tuning into particular situations and moments, and using them as point of reference to learn about life as it is lived. These two devices both claim to allow for an augmentation of the present through which people not only can learn about themselves but also encounter new dimensions of their lives when being reviewed using the devices’ companion apps. As we show below, these technologies build on similar assumptions concerning how people live their lives, yet their technological offerings are framed in a somewhat different way, which helps us to further nuance the idea of the human body as ‘a data-generating device that must be coupled to sensor technology and analytic algorithms in order to be known’ (Schüll 2016: 326; see also Viseu and Suchman 2010; Hansen 2014).

As we discussed above, self-tracking devices are often imagined to help users to make healthier choices and to gain control over their bodies and habits. Other devices of this kind, such as the Narrative Clip (Narrative n.d.), offer users memory assistance and the possibility to ‘re-live’ moments of their lives, so that moments that would otherwise pass them by would not be forgotten. This device is said to be the world’s smallest wearable automatic camera that provides users with a ‘searchable and shareable photographic memory’ (Kickstarter 2012). In a promotional video, a speaker voice presents the gadget as a tiny wearable camera that automatically captures two geotagged photos of the surroundings every minute and organizes these photos in an app library. Such a device is assumed to come in handy since:

Life rushes by, and you just try to keep up. But too often you can’t recall what you did last summer. Or last weekend. Or even last morning. We try to capture the moment we think are special, or important, like birthdays, weddings, holidays, things like that. But the most important moments are the ones we didn’t realize were moments until afterwards. (Kickstarter 2012)

The Narrative Clip is said to help users find the meaningful moments in life and make it possible to ‘relive’ certain parts of one’s life as it is remembered. ‘Sometimes the best moments in life are the simple ones, the things that pass us by without even noticing’ the company explains in another promotional video. They wanted this ‘ultimate lifelogging device’ to capture the ‘smal surprises, and the everyday experiences’ and avoid letting these moments become forgotten (Kickstarter 2012). Through interviews with the people

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.