Abstract
With the ongoing spread of smart devices, self-tracking increasingly finds its way into everyday use. Even a community has formed around it, called the “Quantified Selfers”. A pivotal question to further develop appropriate tools tailored to people’s needs in the future is: For what purposes do people try to systematically track their data digitally? This question is fundamental as different goals of tracking might lead to different needs and requirements, e.g. in terms of the collected data or the provided data analyses. Since knowledge regarding the purposes of self-tracking is scattered among various works, we provide a consolidated overview through a systematic literature review. In contrast to frequently mentioned health-related purposes, there are a lot less apparent purposes that are connected, for example, to a community, awareness, or life experiences. We present our systematization of the purposes as frame for consideration in future developments and research.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Sharon, T., Zandbergen, D.: From data fetishism to quantifying selves: self-tracking practices and the other values of data. New Media Soc. 19, 1695–1709 (2017)
Korotitsch, W.J., Nelson-Gray, R.O.: An overview of self-monitoring research in assessment and treatment. Psychol. Assess. 11, 415–425 (1999)
Choe, E.K., Lee, N.B., Lee, B., Pratt, W., Kientz, J.A.: Understanding quantified-selfers' practices in collecting and exploring personal data. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1143–1152. ACM (2014)
Lupton, D.: Self-tracking cultures. In: Leong, T. (ed.) Proceedings of the 26th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference on Designing the Future of Design, pp. 77–86. ACM, New York (2014)
Gimpel, H., Nißen, M., Görlitz, R.: Quantifying the quantified self: a study on the motivations of patients to track their own health. In: International Conference on Information Systems - ICIS 2013 Proceedings. Healthcare Information Systems (2013)
Kitchenham, B., Charters, S.: Guidelines for performing Systematic Literature Reviews in Software Engineering. In: Technical report, Ver. 2.3 EBSE Technical Report (2007)
Jarrahi, M.H., Gafinowitz, N., Shin, G.: Activity trackers, prior motivation, and perceived informational and motivational affordances. Pers. Ubiquit. Comput. 22(2), 433–448 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-017-1099-9
Whooley, M., Ploderer, B., Gray, K.: On the integration of self-tracking data amongst quantified self members. In: Proceedings of the 28th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference (HCI 2014). BCS Learning & Development (2014)
Suh, A., Cheung, C.M.K.: Beyond hedonic enjoyment: conceptualizing eudaimonic motivation for personal informatics technology usage. In: Marcus, A., Wang, W. (eds.) DUXU 2017. LNCS, vol. 10289, pp. 119–133. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58637-3_9
Henkel, M., Heck, T., Göretz, J.: Rewarding fitness tracking—the communication and promotion of health insurers’ bonus programs and the use of self-tracking data. In: Meiselwitz, G. (ed.) SCSM 2018. LNCS, vol. 10914, pp. 28–49. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91485-5_3
Kelley, C., Lee, B., Wilcox, L.: Self-tracking for mental wellness: understanding expert perspectives and student experiences. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems. CHI Conference 2017, pp. 629–641 (2017)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Lambusch, F., Fellmann, M., Rosenau, C., Gember, A. (2021). On the Diversity of Self-tracking Purposes: Systematizing the Objectives in Tracking Oneself. In: Ahram, T.Z., Falcão, C.S. (eds) Advances in Usability, User Experience, Wearable and Assistive Technology. AHFE 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 275. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80091-8_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80091-8_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-80090-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-80091-8
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)