Quantifying the Body: Body Image, Body Awareness and Self-Tracking Technologies

Abstract

The availability of wearable devices recently boosted the popularity of self-tracking technologies. Self-trackers are involved in a complex process of knowledge development, but this cannot be achieved without knowing the body. However, self-tracking devices seem to embrace an abstract and scattered conception of the body, based on unrelated numbers, graphs, and depictions, which may not be integrated into a coherent body image. This may turn into biases and distortions of how we look at our bodies, worsening, rather than improving, our self-knowledge. In this chapter we explore the ways through which the progressive “quantification” introduced by self-tracking technologies is affecting the body. We first explain a series of theoretical constructs concerning the body, which are essential to understand the impact of self-tracking on our bodies, like body schema, body image, and bodyawareness. Then, we illustrate how individuals’ body image and awareness are affected by the usage of self-tracking technologies in the sports domain. Finally, we point out some lines of future research aimed at providing people with more meaningful representations of their own body, improving their body awareness and even their body image.

Sensing a Heartbeat: A New Perspective on Self-Tracking Technologies through the Integration of Interoception

“…What role do interoception and interoceptive awareness play in the engagement with numerical visualisation and representation of data in the form of graphs or so-called data doubles? To respond to this question, I will focus in the following on Boldi and Rapp's (2022) recent writing, which pays special attention to the impacts of self-tracking on 'body schema', 'body image', 'body awareness', 'interoception', 'exteroception', and 'proprioception'. While the acknowledgement of interoception in their observations is welcome, the authors do not properly articulate how interoception is involved in self-tracking through mobile devices.…”

“…Besides these shortcomings, Boldi and Rapp offer a good starting point for thinking about how the differences in the representation of body data affect experience in different ways. Boldi and Rapp (2022) examine how far the use of self-tracking devices fulfils the expectations of users to improve their awareness and knowledge and whether this informs their everyday decisions and identity (p. 189). The authors collected data from 8 amateur athletes and 12 elite athletes who were using self-tracking devices for more than 3 months at the time of the study.…”

“…In this context, the observation, datafication, and instrumentalisation of the body through self-tracking devices is understood as a tool to overcome these limitations. As Boldi and Rapp (2022) put it:…”

“…One training goal for which the self-tracking device was deemed useful for all amateurs was help in keeping the heart rate within a specific zone. According to interviews, ‘Amateurs agree that trackers can support the athlete in developing a greater awareness of her body, by prompting fixed measures to which compare those signals that are tied to a specific level of heart rate’ (Boldi and Rapp, 2022: 198). The reasoning behind this positive effect, according to Boldi and Rapp, goes back to the evasiveness of inner-bodily processes and the inconsistency of our awareness of them.…”

“…These devices have been touted as a means of promoting healthy habits. But not only does their impact on habit formation remain a topic of debate, but research has also suggested that the use of self-tracking devices can lead to body dissatisfaction and negative body image (Attig and Franke, 2019; Boldi and Rapp, 2022; Sharon, 2017). In addition, studies have shown that the images and metrics provided by these devices contribute to the objectification of the body (Quinn-Nilas et al, 2016).…”