In what is clearly a one-man’s-opinion piece, self-published on Medium, healthcare UX designer Kai Wong asks the question, “What killed the Quantified Self movement?” Indeed, the URL was click bait for me, including the words QS “movement is dead”. https://medium.com/swlh/the-quantified-self-movement-is-dead-41a6134d064c
Clearly, those in this forum and in this community believe the opposite - and - the article has made me wonder about public perception of mass market tracking, whether it’s activity, sleep, health, or other “generic” topics. This article is absolutely an opinion, not a thoughtful analysis of actual data, and I wonder what real research of public perception would show.
I do wonder if there is a growing expectation in the public that some big brother, big company application is going to come along and start to provide individual, insightful value from the data generated - all while guaranteeing perfect privacy, and a commitment to non-exploitation (ha).
Reading the piece also re-focuses me on the n:1 nature of the QS fundamentals, and the awareness that I’m keeping track of certain things to be able to ask and answer questions about myself, and to gain insights I might otherwise not have access. In the end, the process starts with a question, and I want to keep asking good questions. To answer them, I’ll need the data - and that means, for me, the Quantified Self movement is alive and well.
