Algorithmic skin: health-tracking technologies, personal analytics and the biopedagogies of digitized health and physical education

doi:10.1080/13573322.2014.962494

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Algorithmic skin: health-tracking technologies, personal analytics and the biopedagogies of digitized health and physical education

Journal Article•DOI•

Algorithmic skin: health-tracking technologies, personal analytics and the biopedagogies of digitized health and physical education

Ben Williamson¹•Institutions (1)

University of Stirling¹

02 Jan 2015-Sport Education and Society (Routledge)-Vol. 20, Iss: 1, pp 133-151

TL;DR: The ways in which algorithms are converging with eHPE through the emergence of new health-tracking and biophysical data technologies designed for use in educational settings are considered.

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Abstract: The emergence of digitized health and physical education, or ‘eHPE’, embeds software algorithms in the organization of health and physical education pedagogies. Particularly with the emergence of wearable and mobile activity trackers, biosensors and personal analytics apps, algorithmic processes have an increasingly powerful part to play in how people learn about their own bodies and health. This article specifically considers the ways in which algorithms are converging with eHPE through the emergence of new health-tracking and biophysical data technologies designed for use in educational settings. The first half of the article provides a conceptual account of how algorithms ‘do things’ in the social world, and considers how algorithms are interwoven with practices of health tracking. In the second half, three key issues are articulated for further exploration: (1) health tracking as a ‘biopedagogy’ of bodily optimization based on data-led and algorithmically mediated understandings of the body; (2) healt...

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Journal Article•DOI•

How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics

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James Brouwer

01 Apr 2001

371 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

The Datafication of Health

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Minna Ruckenstein, Natasha Dow Schüll¹•Institutions (1)

New York University¹

23 Oct 2017-Annual Review of Anthropology

TL;DR: This review examines how scholars in anthropology, sociology, science and technology studies, and media and communication studies have begun to explore the datafication of clinical and self-care practices, identifying the dominant themes and questions, methodological approaches, and analytical resources of this emerging literature.

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Abstract: Over the past decade, data-intensive logics and practices have come to affect domains of contemporary life ranging from marketing and policy making to entertainment and education; at every turn, there is evidence of “datafication” or the conversion of qualitative aspects of life into quantified data. The datafication of health unfolds on a number of different scales and registers, including data-driven medical research and public health infrastructures, clinical health care, and self-care practices. For the purposes of this review, we focus mainly on the latter two domains, examining how scholars in anthropology, sociology, science and technology studies, and media and communication studies have begun to explore the datafication of clinical and self-care practices. We identify the dominant themes and questions, methodological approaches, and analytical resources of this emerging literature, parsing these under three headings: datafied power, living with data, and data–human mediations. We conclude by urgi...

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257 citations

Cites background from "Algorithmic skin: health-tracking t..."

...Below, we examine how a number of such intermediaries “structure and shape possibilities for action” (Williamson 2015, p. 141)....
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...“Disembodied exhaust gives rise to a data-proxy, an abstracted figure created from the amalgamation of data traces” (Smith 2016, p. 110, emphasis in original; see also Millington 2016, Rich & Miah 2017, Williamson 2015)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

The datafied child: The dataveillance of children and implications for their rights:

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Deborah Lupton¹, Ben Williamson²•Institutions (2)

University of Canberra¹, University of Edinburgh²

23 Jan 2017-New Media & Society

TL;DR: There remains little evidence that specific instruments to safeguard children’s rights in relation to dataveillance have been developed or implemented, and further attention needs to be paid to these issues.

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Abstract: Children are becoming the objects of a multitude of monitoring devices that generate detailed data about them, and critical data researchers and privacy advocates are only just beginning to direct ...

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238 citations

Cites background from "Algorithmic skin: health-tracking t..."

...These body surveillance devices project an optimal form of fitness and wellbeing into a kind of pleasurable body pedagogy that conveys normal expectations and moral codes about health (Gard and Lupton, 2017; Lupton, 2015a, 2017; Williamson, 2015)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

The diverse domains of quantified selves: self-tracking modes and dataveillance

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Deborah Lupton¹•Institutions (1)

University of Canberra¹

15 Apr 2016-Economy and Society

TL;DR: The concept of self-tracking has recently begun to emerge in discussions of ways in which people can record specific features of their lives, often using digital technologies, to monitor, evaluate and optimize themselves as discussed by the authors.

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Abstract: The concept of self-tracking has recently begun to emerge in discussions of ways in which people can record specific features of their lives, often using digital technologies, to monitor, evaluate and optimize themselves. There is evidence that the personal data that are generated by the digital surveillance of individuals (dataveillance) are now used by a range of actors and agencies in diverse contexts. This paper examines the ‘function creep’ of self-tracking by outlining five modes that have emerged: private, communal, pushed, imposed and exploited. The analysis draws upon theoretical perspectives on concepts of selfhood, citizenship, dataveillance and the global digital data economy in discussing the wider socio-cultural implications of the emergence and development of these modes of self-tracking.

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237 citations

Cites background from "Algorithmic skin: health-tracking t..."

...…commodities for hackers, as it can be used for identity theft, to make fraudulent health insurance claims or to access drugs and medical equipment or for blackmailing claims if these data are particularly sensitive (such as sexual identity or activity, for example) (Wicks & Chiauzzi, 2015)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Young People's Uses of Wearable Healthy Lifestyle Technologies; Surveillance, Self-Surveillance and Resistance.

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Victoria A. Goodyear¹, Charlotte Kerner², Mikael Quennerstedt³•Institutions (3)

University of Birmingham¹, Brunel University London², RMIT University³

24 Mar 2019-Sport Education and Society

TL;DR: The results demonstrated that, the daily 10,000 step and calorie burning targets set by the Fitbit device encouraged the young people to do more physical activity, and the device was resisted because it did not record physical activity accurately as part of young people’s daily lives.

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Abstract: An international evidence-base demonstrates that healthy lifestyle digital technologies, like exergames, health-related mobile applications (‘apps’) and wearable health devices are being used more ...

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138 citations

Cites background from "Algorithmic skin: health-tracking t..."

...Equally, studies show that there is a danger that self-tracking will restrict teachers’ capacity to support young people to become healthy citizens by self-tracking governing and controlling the entire educational process (Luton, 2015; Williamson, 2015)....
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...…to and acceptance of this narrow interpretation that health equates to numbers and health is a behaviour that can be quantified (Gard, 2014; Williamson, 2015) is an issue that needs to be addressed in physical education, particularly if self-tracking will become an imposed practice…...
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...…that advocates for the value of surveillance and the use of healthy lifestyle technologies in physical education contexts (Casey et al., 2017; Williamson, 2015), the young people stressed that there would be no educational value of integrating technology and that technology could negatively…...
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...Despite the potential for negative impacts, self-tracking could become an imposed school practice (Luton, 2015; Williamson, 2015)....
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...Recent critical debates point at problematic consequences of the surveillance practices promoted by health devices and apps (Petherick, 2015; Rich & Miah, 2017; Williamson, 2015)....
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References

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Book•

Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

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Geoffrey C. Bowker, Susan Leigh Star

01 Jan 1999

TL;DR: In Sorting Things Out, Bowker and Star as mentioned in this paper explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world and examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary.

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Abstract: What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification -- the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.

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4,480 citations

Book•

Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self

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Nikolas Rose

30 Mar 1991

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the psychology of war and the production of the self in the workplace. But their focus is on the subject of work and not on the individual.

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Abstract: Preface. Introduction. PART ONE: PEOPLE AT WAR. 1. The Psychology of War. 2. The Government of Morale 3. The Sykewarriors 4. Groups at War. PART TWO: THE PRODUCTIVE SUBJECT 1. The Subject of Work 2. The Contented Worker 3. The Worker at War 4. Democracy at Work 5.The Expertise of Management 6. The Production of the Self. PART THREE: THE CHILD, THE FAMILY AND THE OUTSIDE WORLD 1. Governing Childhood 2. Normalising Chilren 3. Adjusting the Bonds of Love 4. Maximising the Mind 5. The Responsible Autonomous Family PART FOUR: MANAGING OURSELVES 1. The Therapeutic Imperative 2. Reshaping our Behaviour 3. Obliged to be Free 4. The Psychotherapy of Freedom.

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3,939 citations

"Algorithmic skin: health-tracking t..." refers background in this paper

...But I also draw on conceptualizations of governance from research that has focused on the ways in which human beings and bodies have been understood, managed and treated—either for purposes of care and cure or for individual and social reform and improvement—through ‘biopolitical’ techniques associated with medical, psychological and neurological sciences (Lemke, 2011; Rose, 1999; Rose & Abi-Rached, 2013)....
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...…beings and bodies have been understood, managed and treated—either for purposes of care and cure or for individual and social reform and improvement—through ‘biopolitical’ techniques associated with medical, psychological and neurological sciences (Lemke, 2011; Rose, 1999; Rose & Abi-Rached, 2013)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics

[...]

Jeremy Tambling, N. Katherine Hayles

01 Jan 2001-Modern Language Review

TL;DR: In this paper, N. Katherine Hayles separates hype from fact, investigating the fate of embodiment in an information age, and relates three interwoven stories: how information lost its body, that is, how it came to be conceptualized as an entity separate from the material forms that carry it; the cultural and technological construction of the cyborg; and the dismantling of the liberal humanist subject in cybernetic discourse, along with the emergence of the ''posthuman''.

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Abstract: From the Publisher: In this age of DNA computers and artificial intelligence, information is becoming disembodied even as the \"bodies\" that once carried it vanish into virtuality. While some marvel at these changes, envisioning consciousness downloaded into a computer or humans \"beamed\" Star Trek-style, others view them with horror, seeing monsters brooding in the machines. In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles separates hype from fact, investigating the fate of embodiment in an information age. Hayles relates three interwoven stories: how information lost its body, that is, how it came to be conceptualized as an entity separate from the material forms that carry it; the cultural and technological construction of the cyborg; and the dismantling of the liberal humanist \"subject\" in cybernetic discourse, along with the emergence of the \"posthuman.\" Ranging widely across the history of technology, cultural studies, and literary criticism, Hayles shows what had to be erased, forgotten, and elided to conceive of information as a disembodied entity. Thus she moves from the post-World War II Macy Conferences on cybernetics to the 1952 novel Limbo by cybernetics aficionado Bernard Wolfe; from the concept of self-making to Philip K. Dick's literary explorations of hallucination and reality; and from artificial life to postmodern novels exploring the implications of seeing humans as cybernetic systems. Although becoming posthuman can be nightmarish, Hayles shows how it can also be liberating. From the birth of cybernetics to artificial life, How We Became Posthuman provides an indispensable account of how we arrived in our virtual age, and of where we might go from here.

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2,603 citations

"Algorithmic skin: health-tracking t..." refers background in this paper

...…has sought to erase the boundaries between humans and non-humans and to reveal the technological metaphors that we use to understand ourselves(e.g. Hayles, 1999), many of the metaphors used to describe the technologies and techniques of the quantified self routinely juxtapose the body with…...
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Journal Article•DOI•

Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

[...]

J. Marc Overhage¹, Jeffery G. Suico¹•Institutions (1)

Indiana University¹

20 Nov 2001-Annals of Internal Medicine

TL;DR: The authors present fascinating history and insights into the development of various classification systems and identify issues that arise during the creation of any classification system, such as the need to compromise between providing granular classifications that satisfy needs specific to a time and place.

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Abstract: Bowker GC and Star SL. 389 pages. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Pr; 1999. $29.95. ISBN 0262024616. Order phone 800-356-0343. Field of medicine: Public health and medical informatics. Format: Hardcover book (softcover also available). Audience: Physicians and nonphysicians involved in developing or setting policy for classification systems, nomenclatures, or vocabularies. Purpose: To discuss the idea that classifications and standardizations have direct impact on social and political aspects of human interaction. Content: The authors organize their presentation into an introductory chapter that frames the issues, followed by three sections (classification and large-scale infrastructures, classification and biography, and classification and work practice) providing specific examples, and a conclusion section. The authors use the International Classification of Diseases, 9th revision, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the Nursing Intervention Classification as primary examples. An extensive bibliography of more than 300 references, a name index, and a subject index follow the text. Highlights: The authors present fascinating history and insights into the development of various classification systems. In addition, they identify issues that arise during the creation of any classification system, such as the need to compromise between providing granular classifications that satisfy needs specific to a time and place. Finally, the authors draw attention to the implications of choices made in the development of some important classification systems. These implications bear on moral judgments, financial effects, and political gains or losses. Limitations: The authors' writing style hinder the reader's ability to access the interesting information and to understand the implications of choices made in developing classification systems. While the overall organization of the book is clear, the themes and ideas do not flow well. Sentences require repeated readings, and a dictionary at your side would be helpful, given the authors' frequent use of unfamiliar words. These failings obscure interesting and valuable facts and viewpoints. Related readings: Svenonius'The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization (MIT Pr; 2000) and Aitchison and colleagues'Thesaurus Construction and Use: A Practical Manual (Fitzroy Dearborn; 2000). Reviewers: J. Marc Overhage, MD, PhD, and Jeffery G. Suico, MD, Regenstrief Institute for Health Care and Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN.

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2,314 citations

"Algorithmic skin: health-tracking t..." refers background in this paper

...…to classify students by their standardized achievement and aptitude tests valorizes some kinds of knowledge skills and renders other kinds invisible’ (Bowker & Star, 1999, p. 6), the health-tracking technologies being promoted in physical education can be understood as sorting systems for…...
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The Relevance of Algorithms

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Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski

01 Jan 2013

TL;DR: This chapter contains section titled: Patterns of Inclusion, Cycles of Anticipation, The Evaluation of Relevance, The Promise of Algorithmic Objectivity, Entanglement with Practice, and The Production of Calculated Publics.

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Abstract: This chapter contains section titled: Patterns of Inclusion, Cycles of Anticipation, The Evaluation of Relevance, The Promise of Algorithmic Objectivity, Entanglement with Practice, The Production of Calculated Publics, Conclusion, Acknowledgments, Notes

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1,133 citations

"Algorithmic skin: health-tracking t..." refers background in this paper

...Perhaps most significantly, however, algorithms privilege automaticity, quantification, proceduralization and automation in human endeavours, and reflect an his‐ torical tension between notions of autonomous human sociality and the imposition of systemized procedures (Gillespie, 2014b)....
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...…of a public’ through its traceable activities and the subsequent presentation of a public back to itself that shapes its very sense of itself, thus helping to constitute ‘publics that would not otherwise exist except that the algorithm called them into existence’ (Gillespie, 2014a, p. 189)....
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...Moreover, Gillespie (2014a) argues, as algorithms are increasingly being designed to anticipate users and make predictions about their future behaviours, users are now reshaping their practices to suit the algorithms they depend on....
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...Such data may be incomplete, partial, or even incompatible with the data that the algorithm will operate on ‘in the wild’ (Gillespie, 2014b)....
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