People keep track of there lives in multiple ways. As Nora Young points out in The Virtual Self “The roots of personal monitoring…run deep in Western culture” the biggest difference, and the one Young explores, is the role that digital technology plays in recording and monitoring the self. Young’s book is essentially a primer for a new way of being present in the digital landscape. Young focuses mostly on the digital tracking of health and wellness. She only touches briefly on social media which, I believe, is a great detriment to the book. The first few chapters are an exploration of the vast variety of types of tracking that can be done, everything from hours, and type, of sleep, to diet, to places travelled. There is a way to track almost anything a person or persons can do. This ability to surveil is one that will only become easier and more ubiquitous. She then goes on to talk about the uses of the data data gathered and the ethical conundrums that can, and will, effect this “industry.”
Young explores many aspects of the digital self, but she does not explore the most interesting thing to me: that of the creation of an archive of everyday life. Her focus is on that of self-improvement, how data collection helps to alter behavior, for better or worse. In the first chapter Young calls it “surveillance of the self”, an ominous but apt description of self-monitoring. More importantly though, in the same paragraph she goes on to say, “engaging with digital technology means engaging the potential for gathering and storing digital information, whether we choose to use it or not- in fact, whether we are aware of it or not.” Social media and other websites are archived in many different ways, to the point where the entirety of Twitter is now searchable in the Library of Congress (Twitterati Bloggerati by Mary Cross). In chapter eight Young starts of a discussion of the ethical considerations of all this publicly available data it is but a surface discussion, perhaps because of the time it was written. The last year or so has seen some frightening revelations about privacy on the internet, and, while a lot of this information is very specific, this information can be used for multiple purposes.
As an anthropologist interested in how digital media form and affect identity Young’s book is a bit of a disappointment. There is not enough of an exploration of the deep meaning of the desire to use these tools/data or the effect of collecting and using any and all possible data available. The idea of collecting all this data comes across as a novelty still with just the briefest of hints of the possibilities. Young’s focus on self-improvement as the only aspect of the virtual self is a bit myopic. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, these are important aspects of a person’s virtual identity and Young barely mentions them let alone discusses them. Tumblr, especially, is creating a space that is remarkable for the sense of community it curates,for example those who identify as LGBTQ, and is working as a safe place for individuals to express their true selves. This community, and self improvement is important, has a more important affect on the world around us.
For a book sub-titled “How our digital lives are altering the world around us” Young spends very little words discussing how the digital is altering the world around us. Perhaps it is my miss-reading of the book. It may not seem like it, but I did enjoy the book, and have started using some of the apps that Young talks about, such as Mint and Carrot. However, I find these apps are not anywhere near engaging enough, Carrot more so than Mint.com, to keep using. After only a week of using Mint, I realized it was telling me what I already knew. Again maybe I’m not the specific audience. In my experience social media are having a far bigger impact on the world around us than self-tracking is. Unfortunately the book just did not dive deeply enough into this aspect of “the virtual self” for me and ignored the bigger aspects of social networking and these communities affect “real life”.
