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So, what is the deal with the quantified self obsession? Is it a young persons thing? Has it always been that way and I just missed out on it? Or is it a newer

So, what is the deal with the quantified self obsession? Is it a young persons thing? Has it always been that way and I just missed out on it? Or is it a newer phenomenon that is catching on due to technology making it easier to capture data about ourselves? I'm really curious.

bicx 13y ago
I am starting to wonder if I'm getting old in tech years as well, and I'm just 27. It may be a draw for people at an earlier stage in life when being affirmed/noticed/accepted by a group of friends is really important to you (high school, college, etc...).
tedks 13y ago
It's hardly new; people had commonplace books in the 1600's. I think QS is probably more popular in communities like hacker news because there are a lot of people here that understand: 1. Computers think faster than you 2. Computers remember more than you 3. You can use the above to solve interesting problems. Combine that with pervasive computing/surveillance and you enable yourself to remember arbitrary amounts of things and mine insights from them. Empirically, it's probably a young person's thing, because people tend towards conservatism with age, and the technology required is going to be something young people are more comfortable with. But there are plenty of older people involved in QS.
- yawz 13y ago
  1. Computers think faster than you Not yet. But they make calculations faster.
  - nzp 13y ago
    Not really. I'd be impressed with a robot that could do bipedal gate (for example) as well as humans do, but the problem is lack of computing power. A human doing mental arithmetic is not at all representative of what and how much the brain actually does during the act.
cfeduke 13y ago
I've felt like quantified self is like an engineer's magic diet pill. If you track how many steps you take you must be losing weight!
throwawaymsft 13y ago
To each their own, but I think it's a fancy way of procrastination/avoidance/navel-gazing. The examples on the site include how many tweets you wrote (ok), tracks you listened to (erm... ok), checkins you had, and the max degrees Celsius for your location that day (what?). In general, you optimize what you measure, but eventually it becomes a parody of itself.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
amwelles 13y ago
I tend to track things I'm trying to improve on or get in the routine of doing. Checking something off as being done is very satisfying to me. I've been using an iOS app called Balance (no affiliation to them) to do this, and it works perfectly with gentle reminders.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  Yes, I think tracking something you already know about and are working on is very useful. Expenses, weight, time spent walking or working out, time spent working on specific projects etc., there are many things that can quite easily be turned into actually interesting graphs, even if it's just to motivate oneself, and certainly to get a more objective look at things or keep track of something over longer periods of time. But number of tweets, or number of checkins per day? Nah.. or maybe it's a play on something Oscar Wilde wrote.. "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." Not that I mean to be snarky, I assume it's up to the user what stats to display and hopefully how to display them; but to get me excited, it would have to be the "Piwik version" of itself, if you catch my drift.
frio 13y ago
For me, it's down to having a chronic health condition. Over the long term (say, 2 years +), it's really easy to lost context -- suddenly, the fact you've been to the toilet 10 times a day rather than 11 seems like an improvement, rather than indicating you probably should see your doctor. I use QS tools to define where some degree of normality is, so my simple monkey brain doesn't lie to me and I can see when I cross that line :).
- MarkTee 13y ago
  Agreed! I find this sort of thing especially helpful when trying new medications/treatments. It's nice to have a chart that I can look over to help give me a better idea about what's going on with my body. "Oh, ever since I started this new medication, I get headaches when I don't drink at least 4L of water." There's no way that I'd be able to keep track of my day-to-day symptoms without writing them down; the days often blur together. Oh, and doctors love it, too.
- lotyrin 13y ago
  Exactly. I have some depression (or maybe just standard human psychology that I have somehow failed to cope with) that will flare up horribly if I'm not eating well, exercising properly, getting enough sun, spending enough time not working, getting enough social time, and probably a few other things I have no idea about yet. Left to my own devices I'll end up eating out for all 1-2 meals a day, only move from the bed to my car to my desk, forget what sunlight looks like, pull 12 hour days and 4 hour nights of sleep (or stumble into a 48 hour cycle), IM only my closest friend every few months, get suicidal and quit another job because nothing matters and the world is cruel. For me at least, quantified self is not about trying to treat myself like a machine, it's about trying to remember not to.
  - gtirloni 13y ago
    I can relate to it deeply. I'll give QS tools a shot. Thank you! Anything in particular you recommend?
prawn 13y ago
Maybe a shortcut to feeling like you can improve or collect any data that might help you improve. At what and how, who knows. Makes me think of the concept that telling someone your idea while leave you less likely to act on it, as you'll feel like you've taken a significant step already.

bicx 13y ago

I am starting to wonder if I'm getting old in tech years as well, and I'm just 27. It may be a draw for people at an earlier stage in life when being affirmed/noticed/accepted by a group of friends is really important to you (high school, college, etc...).

tedks 13y ago

It's hardly new; people had commonplace books in the 1600's. I think QS is probably more popular in communities like hacker news because there are a lot of people here that understand: 1. Computers think faster than you 2. Computers remember more than you 3. You can use the above to solve interesting problems. Combine that with pervasive computing/surveillance and you enable yourself to remember arbitrary amounts of things and mine insights from them. Empirically, it's probably a young person's thing, because people tend towards conservatism with age, and the technology required is going to be something young people are more comfortable with. But there are plenty of older people involved in QS.

yawz 13y ago
1. Computers think faster than you Not yet. But they make calculations faster.
- nzp 13y ago
  Not really. I'd be impressed with a robot that could do bipedal gate (for example) as well as humans do, but the problem is lack of computing power. A human doing mental arithmetic is not at all representative of what and how much the brain actually does during the act.

cfeduke 13y ago

I've felt like quantified self is like an engineer's magic diet pill. If you track how many steps you take you must be losing weight!

throwawaymsft 13y ago

To each their own, but I think it's a fancy way of procrastination/avoidance/navel-gazing. The examples on the site include how many tweets you wrote (ok), tracks you listened to (erm... ok), checkins you had, and the max degrees Celsius for your location that day (what?). In general, you optimize what you measure, but eventually it becomes a parody of itself.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

amwelles 13y ago

I tend to track things I'm trying to improve on or get in the routine of doing. Checking something off as being done is very satisfying to me. I've been using an iOS app called Balance (no affiliation to them) to do this, and it works perfectly with gentle reminders.

PavlovsCat 13y ago
Yes, I think tracking something you already know about and are working on is very useful. Expenses, weight, time spent walking or working out, time spent working on specific projects etc., there are many things that can quite easily be turned into actually interesting graphs, even if it's just to motivate oneself, and certainly to get a more objective look at things or keep track of something over longer periods of time. But number of tweets, or number of checkins per day? Nah.. or maybe it's a play on something Oscar Wilde wrote.. "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." Not that I mean to be snarky, I assume it's up to the user what stats to display and hopefully how to display them; but to get me excited, it would have to be the "Piwik version" of itself, if you catch my drift.

frio 13y ago

For me, it's down to having a chronic health condition. Over the long term (say, 2 years +), it's really easy to lost context -- suddenly, the fact you've been to the toilet 10 times a day rather than 11 seems like an improvement, rather than indicating you probably should see your doctor. I use QS tools to define where some degree of normality is, so my simple monkey brain doesn't lie to me and I can see when I cross that line :).

MarkTee 13y ago
Agreed! I find this sort of thing especially helpful when trying new medications/treatments. It's nice to have a chart that I can look over to help give me a better idea about what's going on with my body. "Oh, ever since I started this new medication, I get headaches when I don't drink at least 4L of water." There's no way that I'd be able to keep track of my day-to-day symptoms without writing them down; the days often blur together. Oh, and doctors love it, too.
lotyrin 13y ago
Exactly. I have some depression (or maybe just standard human psychology that I have somehow failed to cope with) that will flare up horribly if I'm not eating well, exercising properly, getting enough sun, spending enough time not working, getting enough social time, and probably a few other things I have no idea about yet. Left to my own devices I'll end up eating out for all 1-2 meals a day, only move from the bed to my car to my desk, forget what sunlight looks like, pull 12 hour days and 4 hour nights of sleep (or stumble into a 48 hour cycle), IM only my closest friend every few months, get suicidal and quit another job because nothing matters and the world is cruel. For me at least, quantified self is not about trying to treat myself like a machine, it's about trying to remember not to.
- gtirloni 13y ago
  I can relate to it deeply. I'll give QS tools a shot. Thank you! Anything in particular you recommend?

prawn 13y ago

Maybe a shortcut to feeling like you can improve or collect any data that might help you improve. At what and how, who knows. Makes me think of the concept that telling someone your idea while leave you less likely to act on it, as you'll feel like you've taken a significant step already.