This document discusses self-monitoring and personal informatics. It describes the author's experience with Graves' disease and how self-tracking could have helped detect changes earlier. It discusses motivations for self-tracking over time and challenges with long-term tracking. The research studied a group using a self-tracking device over 7 months and found most stopped after winter due to dependencies on the device and lack of routine formation. Considerations around data privacy, ethics and digital literacy in self-tracking are also covered.

1. My Measured Self
Christel De Maeyer
TomorrowBrand 2015

2. Why – Self Management
What – Self Improvement
How - Tools
Personal Informatics
It is about owerness

3. Two sides
The Self
Graves disease
The Research

4. Why
• Interviews and talks learned us that people have to be
confronted with a serious happening before they think
about their life. Something happens and then there is the
reflection
• BUT change is not easy, unless you have to. And even then.
• My shock, Graves disease at severe stadium. If I would have
monitored myself, I would have known things were
changing rapidly – raging heart, very irritated, losing kilo’s,
tremor, moods, etc... (2000)
• Changed my whole lifestyle, upside down, that took years.
The recovery, the process, until the feel good moment.
Why? - because this was not meant to happen twice.

5. Thoughts
• Self-tracking takes time (current behavior
towards goals)
• Short term tracking versus long term tracking
• Instant gratification versus longer term
thinking
• Perception and the data
• Find people who don’t think you show weird
behavior – social acceptance.

6. context physiological
holistic view

7. Intake:
Depending on your lifestyle
Depending your environment
Depending on your discipline
Sources Instagram – Flickr - Facebook

8. Activity
Depending on the weather
Depending on the mood
Depending on the environment
Routine or not
Sources Instagram – Flickr - Facebook

9. Sources Instagram – Flickr - Facebook
Work
Depending on your work style/activity
Depending the environment
In and out of comfort zone
Manage your own time

10. Emotion
Family – parents go into last phase of life
Confrontation with your own life
Friends get ill and die, fast and slow
Moments of joy and happiness
Sources Instagram – Flickr - Facebook

11. Sleep2014
2012

12. Frequency
Seasons
Work
Other

13. Studying – more free time FT Work – Less free time winter

14. Detail Activity

16. #Alzheimer is taking over mom’s life
in May- June 2013 – diagnosed
2008
June 11th 2013 hospitalization
Impact
The night before

17. Conclusion of
Consistent lifestyle
Better Time management
More Productivity
Higher Energy
Feeling Balanced
Feeling HAPPY most of the time!

18. Personal Informatics a solution for preventive healthcare?
Selfmonitoring
process
Selfmonitoring
process
Goal settingGoal setting
Data interpretationData interpretation
Coaching/feedback
loop
Coaching/feedback
loop
Personal
Coaching
•Observe
•Hypothesize
•Act
•Reflect
•Adjust
•Iterate
Anne Wright, 2014, Self-
tracking: Reflections from
the BodyTrack project
Ananthanarayan, Siek, 2012
Fogg, 2007

19. Model for understanding
persuasive side of devices and
software application
Fogg, 2008
Simplicity factors depending on
person and context to create more
ability, the more ability the more
motivation
- Time (planning, time available)
- Money
- Braincycles (cognitive effort)
- Physical effort (planning of
physical activity)
- Social acceptance/out of the
ordinary
- Non-Routine

20. Research set up
When? 7 month study (2012-13)
Who? Non-early adoptors of selftracking with BodyMedia device
Experimental group (N= 10) and Control group (N= 7)
US – San Francisco and Belgium – Ghent area
Research question
Is 24/7 self-monitoring creating enough awareness and persuasion to get a balanced lifestyle?
Will self-monitoring affect general wellbeing among self-monitored people?
Phase Fall ‘12: 3 core motivators:
sensation: pleasure, ‘new’, ‘curiosity’
anticipation: hope, trigger to chage something
social cohesion: being part of a cool thing, group feeling
Phase Winter ‘12-’13
8 out of 10 experimenters
stop selftracking
device created dependencies:
without device =
Back to old routines, less awareness
Phase Spring ‘ 13
3 core motivators turn into negative behavior with some
participants:
Sensation: ‘new’ & ‘curiosity’ gone
Anticipation: confrontation with data
Social cohesion: rejection, outside world reactions
Ability factors/Context factors:
Device:
Fall: feels comfortable, identifies with it, but first signs of ‘Out of the ordinary’
Spring: doing good = takes time, less comfort in long time wearing, outsiders remarks ‘Out of the ordinary’
Behavior:
Fall: small changes creating routines instructed, brain cycles (cognitive investment) made
Spring: due to stop, routine not estasblished, lack of maintenance in habit forming and cognitive effort
Culture and season:
Culture: SF vibrant city, nature aspects, attractive to be active. BE city vs rural area, latter more attractive
Season: SF weather is a trigger to go outside. BE seasonal effect, weather dependency high, less activity
Christel De Maeyer Christel.de.maeyer@vub.ac.be,
Prof. An Jacobs An.Jacobs@vub.ac.be
MEDICINE 2.0 CONFERENCE

21. Example: one wants to go running, this is a whole set of
behavior changes
• Making time
• Get the right shoes
• Choose running track
• Plan it that one can do it on a regular basis
• Think in baby steps, build it up
• Ultimatly create a routine
Behavior change not easy

22. Who ?
Sharing
Lifestyle changes
participatoryWeb-based participatory Platform
Data Storage
Tools Using Real-time Data to support Integrated Care
Goals Analytics
FilteringData
Virtual continuous
Coaching
Call to action
Information
e-Health, Vitalink
Peer support
Community Care
Motivation
Interaction
Therapy adherence
Jan Turdics
Care Path
Sharing
Self-monitoring Self-reporting
iMinds
EDM
iMinds
SMIT
iMinds
iLab.o
Aristoco
Cubigo
SPK
Jusbox
Praktijkhuis
2460
Macx
MIC
Interalis
Jan Turdics
Health behavior
temperament
iMinds
EDMIntegration
More adherence for chronic diseases?

23. Considerations
DataDataPrivacyPrivacy
EthicsEthics
Digital
Literacy
Digital
Literacy
Who owns
the data?
Who owns
the data?
How is the
data used
How is the
data used
ControlControl

24. Q&A
Thanks
Christel De Maeyer
Quantified Self Co-organizer, member Persuasive Tech Lab, Stanford University,
Research – Lector Artevelde
christeldm@gmail.com
Christel.demaeyer@arteveldehs.be
http://Sleepingwithtechnology.com

25. References
1. Swamy Ananthanarayan, Katie A. Siek, 2012, Persuasive Wearable Technology Design for Health and
Wellness, Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder, Pervasive Health 2012, May
21-24, San Diego, United States, Copyright © 2012 ICST
2. BJ Fogg, 2003, Persuasive Technology, Using Computers to change what we think and do, Morgan
KaufmanPublishers
3. BJ Fogg & Dean Eckles, 2007, Mobile Persuasion, Stanford Captaology Media
4. BJ Fogg, Jason Herha, 2010, Behavior Wizard: A Method for Matching Target Behaviors with Solutions N.
Colineau and C. Paris. 2011, Motivating reflection about health within the family: the use of goal setting
and tailored feedback. UMUAI , pages 1-36, 2011.
5. Ian Li, A Jodi Forlizzi, Anind Dey, 2010, Know thyself: monitoring and reflecting on facets of one’s life.
Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in
computing systems, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
6. Ian Anthony Rosas Li, 2011, Personal Informatics and Context:Using Context to Reveal Factors that
Affect Behavior, CMU-HCII-11-106 Human-Computer Interaction Institute, School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US
7. Ian Li, Yevgenly Medynskly, et al, 2012, Personal Informatics in Practice:Improving Quality of Life Trough
Data, CHI’12, May5-10, 2012, Austin , Texas, USA.
8. E. A. Locke and G. P. Latham. 2002, Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task
motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist , 57(9):705-717
9. D. Norman, 2010, Living with complexity, MIT Press
10. Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, 2000, Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitionss and
new directions, Contemporary Educational Psychology 25, 54-67