I feel my wrist buzz. Smartbody and performative sensibility in Fitbit devices

Abstract

Este é um artigo publicado em acesso aberto (Open Access) Abstract: This paper discusses the concepts of performative sensibility and smartbody. The central thesis is that performative sensibility highlights the instrumental nature of sensations in which objects act on the world. We show how the prescriptions of this new sensibility associated with wearables affect the body and subjectivity that we propose to call a smartbody. There were one hundred testimonials analyzed from the oldest thread with the greatest number of comments in the Fitbit user community forum. Quantitative tools and actor-network theory were used as a guide to assemble and analyze the corpus. The preliminary findings show that Fitbit users demonstrate particular changings in body care. Extreme behaviors, physical limits defined by system goals and quantification habits without utilizing the device are some of the examples found. These findings appear to indicate that the performative sensibility of wearables mobilizes new body performatic patterns and practices oriented by data.Keywords: actor-network theory; performative sensibility; smartbody; wearable user experiences; fitbit community. Resumo

Autofotografia e relato de si: materialidades digitais e audiência algorítmica na prática de selfie

“…The image of oneself is also addressed to an algorithmic audience capable of reading and transforming that photo into a textual set that will later be read by the system and heard by someone unable to see it with their own eyes. Accordingly, the photo also becomes a practice of data production inserted, based on algorithmic actions, in a logic of what Lemos and Bitencourt (2017) call performative sensibility. The practice of selfie, therefore, goes beyond the moment of hugging -and beyond the image itself and the smiling faces -, crossing a multiplicity of relationships in different tangles of subjectivity and materiality.…”

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“…A mudança fundamental é na qualidade dos objetos agora instrumentalizados digitalmente. Por exemplo, uma pulseira smart, com sensores e capacidade de comunicação, passa a gerar ações no sujeito, conectando o dispositivo a plataformas e bases de dados específicas, podendo servir para ações sobre a saúde, compondo um novo discurso sobre o corpo (Lemos;Bitencourt, 2017). O mesmo podemos dizer de uma lixeira, um poste de iluminação, uma cadeira, uma geladeira, um termostato, uma lâmpada etc.…”