From self-tracking to self-expertise: The production of self-related knowledge by doing personal science

Abstract

This article explores the production and type of knowledge acquired in the course of specific digital self-tracking activities that resemble research and are common among followers of the Quantified Self movement. On the basis of interviews with self-trackers, it is shown that this knowledge can be characterised as a verified and practical self-knowledge, and that science in the form of scientific sources, methods and quality criteria plays a key role in its production. It is argued that this self-related knowledge can be conceptualised as self-expertise, and its production as personal science. The article then discusses the implications for the science-society relationship. In contrast to self-tracking data, so far self-knowledge has hardly caused any resonance in science, although science currently appears open to the insights from single subject (N-of-1) research. As a new mode of public engagement with science, personal science instead mainly leads to an individual self-expertisation.

Reconfiguring health knowledges? Contemporary modes of self-care as ‘everyday fringe medicine’

“…They were often keen on experimenting, for example, with various body-mind-spirit therapies, nutritional choices, exercise patterns, creative practices (singing, dancing, painting etc.) and other behavioural changes to improve their health and well-being and on seeking to 'validate' their experiences of the effects of such choices through self-compiled data (in the context of self-tracking as a research-like activity, see Heyen, 2020). For self-trackers, digitally compiled data enabled a possibility to investigate, for example, how changes in everyday habits affect sleep, recovery or blood pressure.…”

“…While many acknowledged that ‘anecdotal evidence’ from personal experience did not necessarily prove anything in a scientific sense, they sometimes tried to connect their experiential or data-based evidence with scientific evidence, as a mode of personal science and practical knowledge production (see also Heyen, 2020). Some self-trackers brought up the idea that in their interactions with medical experts, they could ‘prove’ something through data, or that in encounters with medical personnel, the data could act as an intermediary that also backs the expertise of the doctor, as doctors would not have to rely merely on what the patient says.…”

A Long Way to Go: Patient Perspectives on Digital Health for Parkinson’s Disease

“…as building blocks for personal science, which is 256 "the practice of using empirical methods to explore 257 personal questions"[29,43]. Personal science and258 patient-initiated self-tracking offer a framework for 259 structured self-observation that can be supported by 260 the use of technology but can also be applied without 261 We have summarised our view of how the roles 265 of PwP, clinicians and researchers in the design and 266 use of digital health for PD are evolving in Fig.…”

Epistemologie der Selbstverwissenschaftlichung

“…Hier fügt sie sich ein in ein mittlerweile differenziertes Bild digitaler Self-Tracking-Praktiken, das diese nicht einfach nur kul- turkritisch als neuesten Exzess einer Kontroll-, Disziplinar-oder Leistungsgesellschaft interpretiert, sondern in ihrer Vielschichtigkeit ernst nimmt (für einen Überblick siehe Duttweiler et al 2016;Selke 2016). Während die digitale Selbstvermessung in ihren forschungsnahen Formen an anderer Stelle als "Personal Science" bezeichnet und eine daraus entstehende Selbstexpertisierung betont worden ist (Heyen 2020), ist es das Verdienst des vorliegenden Buches, die Epistemologie dieser Wissensproduktion durch Laien ausbuchstabiert zu haben. Dabei weist die Arbeit eindrucksvoll nach, wie erkenntnistheoretisch nahe diese Wissensgenerierung im Alltag zur experimentellen Produktion wissenschaftlichen Wissens steht.…”