In The Virtual Self: How Our Digital Lives Are Altering The World Around Us, Nora Young explores the concept of self-tracking, and how technology is changing the way people track and register information. Using examples that range from Benjamin Franklin’s journal entries to the social media posts that helped pinpoint the location of a pipe-bomb in 2010, Young identifies different methods of self-tracking that increase self-awareness and make people more accountable for the way they spend their time.
One thread of this self-tracking relates to weight management. As Young explains, “the Web is rich with services to help us lose weight and stay fit through recording our diet and exercises” (16). This is critical technology considering Canada’s ever expanding waistband. With over 20% of females and over 40% of males self-identifying as overweight in a 2011 Statistics Canada analysis, we can use all the help we can get.
In The Virtual Self, Young identifies several technologies that are helping people shed pounds, such as FitBit, a small wrist monitor that tracks calories, exercise and even sleep by using 3-D motion sensors. There are also countless websites, such as FitDay.com, dedicated to giving specific information about the nutritional information for different foods in order to make it easier to keep tabs on how many calories they consume in a day.
A new trend, not mentioned by Young, is the development of apps designed to make exercise more fun. An example is the app “Zombies, Run!” that makes a workout less of a chore and more of a game. The runner’s goal is to save the lives of the people at the “base” by locating critical supplies. Using a series of dynamic radio messages interspersed with the runner’s own music, the runner is forced to randomly pick up their pace – or even sprint¬ –¬ to avoid a zombie attack. There are over 100 different missions available with the app, 40 of which are free.
Technologies like this are changing the way we look at exercise, and are making us more accountable for our behaviors. Websites like habitforge.com monitor a person’s goals, and send them daily reminders to keep them motivated.
I myself went through the process of significant weight loss. At the age of 16 I was pushing 200 pounds, and was tired of feeling self-conscious and alienated. As a competitive swimmer I exercised daily, but had a large appetite that favoured McDonald’s BLTs over fruits and vegetables. Losing weight was a difficult and lengthy process, but keeping track of my energy input and output made it easier.
At the time, I had never heard of websites to help track such things, so I relied upon “guesstimation”, adding up my own totals everyday. Over the course of eight months, through increased exercise and careful eating, I managed to lose 55 pounds, bringing me into the “normal” weight category for my height. Four years later, I have still managed to maintain my goal weight, though I did stop monitoring my diet constantly after the first year – I found it was taking away from the experience of eating. Young expresses that same concern, saying that it can feel like, “sources of bodily delight and physical expressiveness, such as running or eating a meal, are reduced to stats-driven, objectified activities.” (18) That being said, I found it a useful tool to better manage what types of food I could use to fuel my body.
Self-tracking can be particularly useful for patients trying to return to exercise after an injury. The Virtual Self discusses Carlos Rizo, who started self-tracking after a serious accident in 2006 left him in pain for several years. He began tracking as a way of recording his pain – what helped or what made it worse – but over the course of his healing process he began to use it to track his re-entry into the exercise world. Now, eight years after the accident, he tracks his calories, workouts and bike rides. The pain, thankfully, is no longer an issue.
In The Virtual Self, Young examines various uses of tracking technology, some of which could greatly improve the health of users. From the asthma inhalers that have a GPS to better monitor where flare-ups occur, to Twitter feeds that pin-point and monitor the spread of infectious diseases, there are many opportunities to advance our health through tracking technology.
I found The Virtual Self well-written and packed with historical and contemporary examples. It opened my eyes to opportunities available to me, many readily accessible through the Internet or my I-phone. Young puts it nicely, “Self-tracking is our gin. It’s an almost impulsive desire to document the actual states of being and physical presence” (83). If that’s the case, we can all drink up.