Kateryna Maltseva and Christoph Lutz recently presented their paper “A Quantum of Self: A Study on Self-Quantification and Self-Disclosure” in the session on self-tracking, surveillance, and privacy at the Metric Culture conference in Aarhus (Denmark). The conference covered the topics of privacy, flow, optimization, gamification, and healthism in the context of self-quantification. Renowned scholars Deborah Lupton and Rosalind Gill were invited as keynote speakers at the conference.
Self-quantification is a process of recording, analyzing, and acting upon one’s personal data. Results of the paper by Kateryna and Christoph suggest that people who are conscientious are more likely to engage in self-quantification, whereas people who consider themselves emotionally stable are less prone to self-quantification. In addition, people who frequently and/or extensively use self-tracking devices and applications are more likely to disclose personal information in contexts beyond personal quantification, for instance, during interpersonal communications or interacting with businesses. The research findings have implications for self-tracking and privacy literature as well as policy makers.