From Diaries to Data Doubles. Self-Tracking in Dutch Diaries (1780–1940)

Abstract

In recent years self-tracking technologies have become widely adopted. Life-writing scholars have contributed to the burgeoning academic interest in this phenomenon and pointed to similarities between the diary and present-day self-tracking apps, wearables and our digital 'data doubles' resulting from networked technology. However, studies on self-tracking in historical diaries are rare. In this article, I focus on experiences of self-tracking in five Dutch diaries from the long nineteenth century . Self-tracking includes all sorts of ways in which people have turned their bodies, minds, and habits into data. I have constrained my analysis of self-tracking in diaries to two bodily aspects: firstly, masturbation in connection with sleeping habits and, secondly, the menstrual cycle and birth control. The diaries show that the 'quantified self' in effect often becomes the 'qualified self', because tracking data involves interpretation, identity meanings and storytelling. The most important link between self-tracking in the stories told, both in historical paper diaries and in present-day forms, is the discourse of 'ableism'. Ability as a norm takes shape in the long nineteenth century with the diary as a key 'technology of the self' in which the responsible, self-governing individual monitors his or her own health and wellbeing.

Narratives in numbers: Sociotechnical storytelling with self-tracking

“…201) of symptoms in/over time. Ableism is deeply inscribed in the tracking of life, particularly through long-established modes like diary keeping (Vermeer 2022), and the relative privileges of core communities in this space, like QS (Lupton 2016, pp. 31).…”

“…In this less techno-centric view of self-tracking, the digital incarnation is only one among many other methods by which humans track, capture, and express their recollections (Lupton 2019;Wernimont 2018). Connections between 'diaries' and the notion of 'data doubles' is made explicit by Vermeer (2022), who finds datafication present within historical diaries, and argues that digital and analogue examples share both reflect the cultural concerns of their times. Taking forward these trajectories, this paper explores self-tracking as a datafied narration of everyday life, in which data and memory continue to affirm each other.…”

“…8). The notion of self-tracking as a diary-keeping practice so often arrives retrospectively to self-tracking practices and data, despite research pointing more and more earnestly to the primacy of memory and of diary-like engagements (Cardell 2020;Homewood 2023;Rettberg 2018;Vermeer 2022). Self-tracking would be better understood as a sociotechnical phenomenon, if mnemonic connections were seen as a prospective requirement: they are, in fact, implicitly encouraged as a means to anchor activities, keep records, participate in social elementsand if warrantedchange over time, to the bedrock of the user's experience.…”

Reimagining the cycle: interaction in self-tracking period apps and menstrual empowerment

“…While we can assume that menstrual tracking has been part of women's lives in all times, there is little historic documentation on it. Some early examples of menstrual tracking are from nineteenth century diaries where women marked menstruation with different codes and hints (Vermeer, 2022). Still today, research shows that knowledge on bleeding and fertility issues tend to be low (Nilsson et al, 2018;Perez Capotosto, 2021).…”