Meh. This quantified self business is just the next iteration of herbal remedies, Chinese medicine, and all that other pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo out there. You might as well add your astrological sign to all these apps.
This is yet another area where people are attempting to layer technology on top of a problem that does not exist.
Meh. This quantified self business is just the next iteration of herbal remedies, Chinese medicine, and all that other pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo out there. You might as well add your astrological sign to all these apps.
Why would you think that? If anything, the self quantified movement is all about thinking scientifically to improve yourself. Gathering data, analyzing, designing experiments, generating hypothesis, and publishing for feedback are all part of being self quantified.
You make the assumption that people will use the scientific method with this stuff. The more likely scenario is that people will optimize for a single number (VDL/HDL, weight, or other) and miss the whole point.
The attitude that we can simply "optimize our life" is reductionist, arrogant, foolhardy. You will spend more time optimizing your numbers than you will living your life. But hey, at least you have the data to back it up :-)
Sure, it will be used for selling a lot of snake oil, like anything related to health or productivity.
But at the same time, we're surrounding ourselves with so many sensors that for the first time in the history of mankind we can really "data mine ourselves". This may bring up interesting discoveries.
In the early days of science some kept strict logs about everything they did with the same goal. Now this can be automated.
What you are missing is that people figuring out useful stats from all these numbers and then improving their lives based on real life in real time. I suggest you try this for 1 day, just keep track of your happiness. Its really interesting and optimizable, as you can find out.
Sure no one is saying quantified will get you from a 1 to a 10 on the happiness scale, but it will definitely help you to learn more about yourself.
OK, then -- What might one learn by tracking something as squishy and undefined as happiness? I find it ridiculous that anyone would attempt to reduce happiness to a single numeric range.
- I don't need to track my happiness to know if I'm happy.
- I don't need to track my sleeping patterns to learn how to sleep better.
- I don't need to track every calorie to know if I'm eating well.
- I don't need a computer to tell me if I'm healthy.
It seems to me that QS is just a new fad that will make a certain personality type feel like they have control over their lives.
"Quantified Self -- Using numbers, technology, and science to divine common sense!"
This is yet another area where people are attempting to layer technology on top of a problem that does not exist.