Quantified Self: A Guide to Tools, Trends, and Applications

Quantified SelfA Guide to Tools, Trends, and

ApplicationsNYU ITP

June 7, 2013

by @andrewcpaulus

Who I am and why I’m here

-Product based startup background: Savored Groupon Basno

-Co-Organizer of the NY Quantified Self Group

-Experience with a variety of QS tools

-Excited about helping people better understand themselves and empower them with useful tools

What I have tracked• Activity

– Jawbone Up, Moves, Chronos, friend’s app (mostly passive)

• Sleep– Jawbone Up(mostly passive)

• Mood– Jawbone Up (mostly passive)

• Diet– Used personal notebook

(discontinued)• Weight & fat mass

– Withings Smart Body Scale (daily)• Heart rate

– Withings Smart Body Scale (daily)• Productivity/computer usage

– RescueTime (passive)

• Location– Moves, Openpaths (passive)

• Meditation time– Insight Timer (passive)

• Clothing choices relative to weather– Personal GoogleDoc

(discontinued)• Finances

– Mint, Simple (weekly)• Goals

– Weekly updated GoogleDoc (weekly)

• Life balance & tasks– Color coded Trello board w/

weekly check-ins (daily/weekly)

Activity and Sleep

Weight, fat mass, heart rate

Meditation log

Productivity

Agenda• What is Quantified Self• How quantified self got started• The state of quantified self today• Tools & apps• Trends• Hacking your own QS tools and

projects

What Is The Quantified Self?Original definition: self knowledge through numbers

• Recently it has been a catch-all term in the media for anything where information relevant to an individual is tracked

• At its core QS is curious introspection about the self as well as the methods and meaning of self tracking

Image by whitney erin boesel for Cyborgology

How it began

First QS Meetup at Kevin Kelly’s house in September 2007 (image credit: Kevin Kelly)

A sample of Tim Ferriss’s notes from the first QS Meetup (image credit: Tim Ferriss)

The meetup initially just provided a forum for discussing the self-tracking that people were already doing

Quantified Self Today

QS Survey• Demographics & Basics

– Age distribution - Average age = 36.2 years old, youngest = 23 years old, oldest = 74 years old

– Gender distribution - 67% male / 33% female– Currently working in a QS related company or have created a QS tool – 30%

• Data Sharing– % that share data with someone else - 51%– % that share data with a spouse/partner - 39%– % that share data with a health professional - 14%

QS Survey

What are people using / Tools

Notable Tools• Activity / general purpose trackers

Notable Tools• Sleep specific tools

Notable Tools• Brain activity / focus

Notable tools• Genetic sequencing

Notable Tools• Aggregators – will see more emerge

Notable Tools• Mood

Notable Tools• Food / diet

Notable ToolsEffect of Google Glasses and effortless data Collection

What do we do with all this?The QS world Gary Wolf would like to live in:

• Data can be exported from the various systems we use into a simple format for exploration.

• We can store and backup our data using whatever method we want.

• We can share our data with whomever we want.• We can rescind permission to look at our data.• We can flow our data into diverse visualization

templates and analytical systems.

Where is QS going?• Moving from manual data entry to

passive data collection will continue to bring it into the mainstream as tech improves

• Brave vs. reckless with new technology, its methods and meaning

• Increasing pressure to make data standardized, exportable, user owned

• Boom of DIY data science

What can you do / hack yourself• Typically useful to start with a hypothesis or a

question/problem you really care about since most tech still requires some effort

• There are tools for everything, just start tracking and iterate as you reflect on the data

• Look for interesting combinations– Weight and Foursquare check-ins– Meditation time and mood– Sleep and productivity– Sleep and activity– Exercise and productivity– Key is to stick with it and standardize your data

collection methods

More personal hacking tools• Don’t be afraid

of starting with a basic spreadsheet

• Look for tools that allow you to export your data

• Consider leveraging IFTT to automate data entry

…what do you want to find out?