The Unquantifiable Self: An exploration into the relationship between users and their activity trackers

Digital self-tracking generates ever increasing amounts of personal data on anything from mood and relationships to health and finance. This thesis aims to explore the relationship between the consumer and their personal data, it seeks to discover how self-tracking changes the user’s experience and understanding of the world and themselves. The background research firstly discusses the usefulness and availability of self-tracking data to the consumer in comparison to other stakeholders. Secondly, it explores the services and cultural systems that guide how self-tracking might be used as a tool for self-expression. Thirdly, it outlines the ways that quantification can change how an experience is perceived and the meaning that people find in analysing their data.Finally, it discusses the impact of potential surveillance on consumers. Interviews and analysis concluded that activity trackers help users make day to day decisions, that personal data is both meaningful and useful to the user and can act as a way to express or represent their experiences and that the act of using an activity tracker also changes and often enhances the experiences of the user. These ideas were then explored in a series of design works that both critiqued self-tracking and used it as a creative medium.