Download or read book Keeping Track written by Natasha Dow Schüll and published by Random House. This book was released on 2023-07-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How many calories have you consumed today? How many steps have you taken? How stressed are you? Keeping Track is a groundbreaking book about what it means to be human in the age of big data and ubiquitous technology. Using wristbands, smart watches or simply our phones, we are now able to monitor our heart rate and blood-sugar levels, our sleep patterns and menstrual cycles, the quality of our exercise, the cost of our office lives and countless other metrics of physical and psychological well-being, including the use of technology itself. But what else might this practice of ‘living by numbers’ tells us about ourselves? The aim of self-tracking is to provide a more scientific means of self-improvement, but what are its actual effects? The idea that one's self is something to be measured, worked on and improved has been with us for a long time, but never before have we been able to pursue this goal so rigorously. In this ground-breaking book, anthropologist Natasha Schüll uses riveting stories and personal encounters to provide the first full investigation of a formerly fringe activity that in recent years has been developed, monetised and successfully transplanted by technological companies into daily mainstream life. It offers startling insights into what we think we want and what we actually need in the age of the machine.