ADM Talk: Compass to sentinel: the automation of self-tracking technology

Talk by Dow Schüll, cultural anthropologist and associate professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University.

The talk draws on ethnographic fieldwork to argue that a shift is underway in the logic of behavioural guidance informing the design and use of so-called self-tracking technology, or apps and wearable devices that sense, record, and analyze users’ data. While first-wave self-tracking technologies were designed to serve as digital compasses that could provide attentive selves with information to help them navigate the choice-filled seas of modern life, newer technologies are designed to serve as sentinels that can stand watch for distracted and overwhelmed selves, providing just-in-time micronudges to keep them on track.

Bio

Dow Schüll is a cultural anthropologist and associate professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Her recent book, ADDICTION BY DESIGN: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas (Princeton University Press 2012), draws on extended research among compulsive gamblers and the designers of the slot machines they play to explore the relationship between technology design and the experience of addiction. Her next book, KEEPING TRACK (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, under contract), concerns the rise of digital self-tracking technologies and the new modes of introspection and self-governance they engender.

Zoom link

https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/63004013510?pwd=dDc3d0xCendMeEs2c0NnVmhUeFJoZz09