Cheating in quantification

Hey there!

I’m a master’s student majoring in Human-Computer Interaction and currently working on my thesis. I’m looking into relations people have with (digital) tools and how these relations, in turn, define who we are. More specifically, I’m researching in the field of quantifying oneself (basically anything that would fall under the term tracking). I have some questions prepared which I am hoping to get answered:

How would you describe your relation with your tracking technology?

Can you describe your viewpoint on the act of cheating?
Do you have any anecdotes/stories/thoughts regarding cheating?
How would you, If you had to, cheat your tracking technology?

If you have any thoughts/input/stories, feel free to reply to this post or shoot me an email (s1069335@stud.sbg.ac.at). I’m appreciative of any response!

Cheers,
Jakob

Please provide an EDU addressed email or project page or else your post will be removed.

1 Like

What on earth would be the point of cheating tracking? Tracking is so I can see what’s actually happening, cheating it would just completely ruin the link. There’s no point in having lovely output that doesn’t reflect reality

I’ve heard of situations where “cheating” happens because of human emotions and wanting to meet a specific goal.

Say you weigh yourself every morning. I’ve heard of people stepping on the scale and when they see the numbers come up (and if they look bad) they step off so it’s not counted. From a logical viewpoint it doesn’t make sense but it can be hard to see a metric moving in the wrong direction.