Difference between revisions of "Reasons for and against self tracking and quantification"
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==== Recording is not necessary to find relationships ==== | ==== Recording is not necessary to find relationships ==== | ||
| − | User could just mentally compare one day and the next. Far fewer of the issues listed in this section apply to 'mental comparison'. In particular user saves time and privacy. Many purposes for self tracking can not be satisfied by just paying attention. Most relationships user would want to uncover require statistical analysis, especially strong effects that can only be seen across long periods. Though, more important effects are usually more sever and easier to notice. Many things a user would want to track required a device and can then be automatically tracked with very little effort on the user's part. | + | User could just mentally compare one day and the next. Far fewer of the issues listed in this section apply to 'mental comparison'. In particular user saves time and privacy. Many purposes for self tracking can not be satisfied by just paying attention. Most relationships user would want to uncover require statistical analysis, especially strong effects that can only be seen across long periods. Though, more important effects are usually more sever and easier to notice. Many things a user would want to track required a device and can then be automatically tracked with very little effort on the user's part. 'Mental comparison' relies completely on [[Self assessment]] with all its issues and minus a few of the mellowing techniques. In the end, this alternative method to self tracking is rarely usable. |
==== Negative engagement of User ==== | ==== Negative engagement of User ==== | ||
Revision as of 01:57, 12 June 2022
There is a wide array of reasons for and against engaging in self-tracking, this article provides a summary of a debate through an argument map on kialo [1].
Reasons For
Improve the management of health conditions
Doctors get much more precise, objective and detailed description than patients provide verbally. Patients get a clearer picture of their health.
Chronic health, sub-clinical problems, and effects of lifestyle choices like veganism, may be monitored using personal health tracking. Remedies such as weight loss diets and melatonin can be tested for effectiveness with self health tracking. Even if no remedies are found, knowing not to worry or bother is worthwhile information.
Unfortunately, sub-clinical issues are often esoteric and so require elusive or underdeveloped tools.
Motivate behavior change
Gamification seems pretty popular and it requires tracking. Most consumer wearables include lots of motivating information. Just watching the numbers improve or be recorded can be quite motivating and build healthy habits; according to personal experience DG (talk) and Atomic Habits book. Health tracking can determine the best behavior change technique for each individual. Problems usually have easier solutions than just relying on willpower such as a way to make a necessary habit much more fun or that underneath the problem is a health issue.
Optimize health, productivity, education, sports training, and cognitive functioning.
Exactly how much coffee do you need and when is it so much that it affects sleep? Professional coaches use health tracking. QS projects have found interventions that help these like creatine for cognitive functioning. For more examples see https://wiki.openhumans.org/wiki/List_of_Interesting_Self-Tracking_Results.
Contribute your data to medical research.
Variety of literature shows the validity of N-of-1 approaches.
Lifelogging, Introspection
Can be fun. Store important memories.
Reasons Against and Problems
Self tracking takes too much time and effort every day.
Active Tracking is time consuming though automatic data recording is usually not. Some things can only be tracked manually. Studies and experience show people dropping even almost completely automated fitness tracking smart watches. Effort is hard to define as some people like Journaling and others do not.
- Almost none: Smart Watches and Rings , Automatic Time tracking, already tracked personal data like Social media or your Calendar , public info like Outdoor Weather,
- A few minutes each day: Weight scale, Exercise Heart Rate Strap, Rating Mood at end of each day.
- Over 10 minutes each day: Cognitive Tests, Diet tracking, manual Time tracking, Journaling
Health tracking presents privacy concerns
Most consumers already give lots of data to companies, such as their location via GPS, social media, and their search and browsing history. Employees already monitor employee health to optimize the performance of their employees. It is possible to do basic cognitive and psychological assessment via background things like speed of typing, semantic analysis and emotion detection[2] via cameras. Companies regularly hoard customer data, sell it to 3rd party aggregators, and get hacked. Never the less self trackers can make much more data available.
Self tracking user has some options for defense. Data protection regulations grow.[1] Data can be anonymized, though often its not hard to deanonymize it. Open source apps, and some commercial ones, are under your complete control and will not mind if the device its on never connects to the internet. Government classified Medical Devices make medical data and that data is under far more protection than basic commercial device data. This wiki will note open source tools and tools with exceptional demand or lack there of for user data.
Choosing, setting up, and connecting user's selection of apps and devices can be quite a bit of work. Or expensive.
User could follow someone else's made trail such as reading this wiki instead of researching everything themselves. Custom data sources such as for rare problems that have not been documented here are still a problem. Privacy, data access, data quality, and price are all constraints which make finding a good enough device harder.
Analysis algorithms are either hard to use or too incapable.
All apps besides OH with any ability to analyze just use linear regression. Just read an article in nature where ML was used on multiple N-of-1 studies but that approach was lacking and is difficult for the average user to set up.
Recording is not necessary to find relationships
User could just mentally compare one day and the next. Far fewer of the issues listed in this section apply to 'mental comparison'. In particular user saves time and privacy. Many purposes for self tracking can not be satisfied by just paying attention. Most relationships user would want to uncover require statistical analysis, especially strong effects that can only be seen across long periods. Though, more important effects are usually more sever and easier to notice. Many things a user would want to track required a device and can then be automatically tracked with very little effort on the user's part. 'Mental comparison' relies completely on Self assessment with all its issues and minus a few of the mellowing techniques. In the end, this alternative method to self tracking is rarely usable.
Negative engagement of User
such as becoming obsessed with data tracking.
People make mistakes forget and slack when recording data manually
Self-report is a common concern in studies.
People do not want to know somethings
Like a genetic predisposition to a disease they can not treat.
References
Linked content on this wiki
(The content in the table below is automatically created. See Template:Topic Queries for details. If newly linked pages do not appear here, click on "More" and "Refresh".)
| Tools related to this topic |
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| Projects related to this topic |
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| Self researchers related to this topic |
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| We talked about this topic in the following meetings |
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| 2022-06-23 Self-Research Chat |