Tools for Well-Being (MAS S64)

The sciences benefited tremendously from remote sensing technology in the 20th century, but not until recently has the prohibitive cost and specialized knowledge needed to effectively use these sensors dropped significantly enough to invite consumer designs (the camera being an obvious exception). Fundamentally, the goal of personal informatics is to have bits move atoms with dignity, and the current proliferation of mobile medical devices and self-tracking apps promises to make our lives more data-driven than ever. It is worth remembering, then, that a measured life is neither a new phenomenon nor dependent on silicon. Robert Schwitzgebel, editor of the volume…

As sensors get smaller and computing power becomes more mobile, self tracking is becoming normal.  Does it work? Yes. Is it good for you? Yes. Is it bad for you? Yes.  I think it’s much less about what it is and more about how you use it. I don’t think anybody would think anything of keeping a journal, but many people do, and most would consider it a good thing. Our memory distorts our past experiences, so why not use an objective means to record ourselves? If we have a goal in mind, or an experiment to administer onto ourselves,…

The Moment is an application designed to help people with depression and/or bipolar disorder to understand their feelings better and eventually find a way to manage them better. This application enables them to record their self-assessed feelings with events using an emotion mapped color touch panel and a physiological sensor, to visualize them, and to share this information with others. It is designed for 6 main purposes: (1) to improve the experience of self-report and self-assessment, (2) to record both self- assessment and unconscious internal responses, (3) to reveal patterns between self-reports and physiological biological data, (4) to reveal patterns…

The Data-Driven Life (Positive Review) The fundamental argument for the benefits of self-tracking and the use of raw data is an underlying assumption that most people do not have a firm grasp of their real actions; people are poor at keeping track of their time, spending, calorie consumption, emotions, thought patterns, even amount that they talk per day. If people have access to this data, maybe that is enough motivation to change their behavior, and would help them change it in intelligent ways. The New York Times article “The Data-Driven Life” does a good job at summarizing ways that various…

              In 2013 John-Paul Flintoff wrote about his experience familiarizing himself with the Quantified Self (QS) movement. He explored several different applications as he tried to understand and gain the benefits of documenting daily activities. His experience brought to light some interesting questions and revelations about the movement. Several devices have been developed since the movement was created in 2007. These devices take one of two routes: take as much information as possible passively without user input or have the user input as much information as possible. In both cases the data gathered is processed and given back to…

I heard the incongruous sound of the bell chime from my iPhone as I steered our car into our driveway Sunday afternoon, carefully avoiding snowdrifts. We were heading back from Boston’s Museum of Science, keen on getting our 2-year-old son fed and into bed by his 1:30 nap time. As I put the car in park, I glanced down at my phone to see the alert that went with the bell: “Do you have time to meditate?” “Sadly, no,” I thought to myself. The well-meaning alert came from The Mindfulness App, smartphone software designed to help people “become more present”…