Sensored: The Quantified Self, Self-Tracking, and the Limits of Digital Transparency Yuliya Grinberg Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2019 © 2018 Yuliya Grinberg All rights reserved ABSTRACT Sensored: The Quantified Self, Self-Tracking, and the Limits of Digital Transparency Yuliya Grinberg The idea that daily life overflows with data has entered our common sense. Digital sensors placed in phones, clothing, or household appliances to track how we walk, how much we sleep, or where we travel have heightened the sense that everything about our lives is rapidly being translated into data. Theorists writing about data overload have largely converged around questions of privacy and agency, focusing on the feelings of impotence produced by large quantities of data that now let corporations effortlessly monitor and regulate people’s lives. By contrast, I am interested in moments of friction. Scholars point to real issues, but they overstate the efficacy of data gathering and discount the professional dynamics that motivate the proliferation of data. As I evaluate how data discourse operates and builds, I concentrate on the experiences of those involved in the business of self-tracking, and mainly on the work of U.S.- based developers of wearable computing and the technology professionals who participate in the international forum for data enthusiasts called the Quantified Self. As I analyze how digital entrepreneurialism configures notions of data and transforms digital self-monitoring into meaningful work, I examine how the relationship of technology professionals to data opens onto wider debates about the politics of digital representation. Ultimately, by applying an anthropological lens to explore how the practices, beliefs, and views of marketers, engineers, and developers of self-tracking tools shape digital knowledge, this research challenges accounts of data based purely on transparency, anxiety, and fear and reveals just how precarious the control exerted by digital companies and self-monitoring tools really is. Table of Contents List of Illustrations ...................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... iii Dedication .................................................................................................................. viii Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 Opening Interlude: The Most Connected Man on Earth ...................................... 38 PART I: TRANSPARENCY ......................................................................................... 53 Chapter 1: Second Skin ............................................................................................. 57 Chapter 2: Social Skin ............................................................................................... 92 PART II: FLOW .......................................................................................................... 128 Chapter 3: The (Moral) Economy of Gestures ..................................................... 129 PART III: COMMUNITY .......................................................................................... 178 Chapter 4: Searching for Community ................................................................... 181 Chapter 5: United in Difference ............................................................................. 216 PART IV: CLEAN DATA .......................................................................................... 247 Chapter 6: Emotional Sweating ............................................................................. 248 Conclusion: Purity and Data .................................................................................. 282 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 289 i List of Illustrations Figure 1: Poster for Dark Net ...........................................................................................................................1 Figure 2: Page from Chris's calendar, Chrisdancy.com .................................................................................41 Figure 3: Painting by Aaron Jastinski ............................................................................................................46 Figure 4: Life size poster greeting visitors at CES 2016. Photo by author. ...................................................47 Figure 5: The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo ............................................................................................47 Figure 6: Before and After image of Chris, Mashable 13, 2014 ....................................................................48 Figure 7: Photo by Kyle Thompson ...............................................................................................................49 Figure 8: Cover of Time magazine, September 11, 2014 ...............................................................................50 Figure 9: Photograph by Kyle Thompson ......................................................................................................51 Figure 10: Tweet by Chris ..............................................................................................................................62 Figure 11: Mock-up of the project X.pose .....................................................................................................63 Figure 12: The Borg Club. Steve Mann is far left. Courtesy of © Steve Mann, 1996. ..................................64 Figure 13: Forrester Research Graphic ...........................................................................................................70 Figure 14: The Vitruvian Man ........................................................................................................................70 Figure 15: Poster for the film The Human Face of Big Data. ........................................................................79 Figure 16: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. A DVD cover (2007 release). .................................79 Figure 17: Hair samples used in Stranger Vision. ..........................................................................................81 Figure 18: Busts at the Stranger Vision Exhibit .............................................................................................82 Figure 19: Football Gladiators, www.bodyworlds.com .................................................................................88 Figure 20: Image: Body Worlds pulse, Destination: You banner, www.bodyworlds.com. ...........................88 Figure 21: The Skin Man, www.bodyworlds.com .........................................................................................89 Figure 22: Body Metrics exhibit, on premise billboard. ................................................................................90 Figure 23: February 8, 1993 Time magazine cover .....................................................................................108 Figure 24: Time magazine February 8, 1993 cover story art, p. 61. ............................................................109 Figure 25: A slide from B. Wilder’s presentation at the 2015 WearableTech Expo. ...................................129 Figure 26: Sphygmograph and Step-Tracker developed by Etienne Jules Marey in 1860. .........................134 Figure 27: FitBit wrist-work heart-rate and step-tracker. .............................................................................134 Figure 28: Monitors at the Scanadu display at the Quantified Self conference. Photo by author. ...............152 Figure 29: Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2015. ............................................................159 Figure 30: Displays set up at CES. Photo by author. ...................................................................................161 Figure 31: David Sipress, New Yorker Cartoon, May 2017 ........................................................................181 Figure 32: Demo Hour Showcase .................................................................................................................188 Figure 33: Attendees seated for a Show & Tell presentation .......................................................................189 Figure 34: Quantified Self Logo ...................................................................................................................208 Figure 35: Online banner ad and event display at the CES 2015. ................................................................235 Figure 36: Ads for data-processing software and wearable technology in SF and Denver airports. ...........239 Figure 37: Cover of the first edition of the Whole Earth Catalog ................................................................241 Figure 38: Photo by Bianca Consunji, Evan Engel for Mashable.com ........................................................283 Figure 39: Photo by Benjamin Rasmussen for Bloomberg BusinessWeek .................................................284 Figure 40: Photo from Mashable.com’s "The Most Connected Man is You Just a Few Years from Now”286 ii Acknowledgements A joke had been making rounds at dinner