Just ran across an interesting essay(ish) about Self Surveillance, the act of keeping track of yourself using the tools around you. This is something that popped into my head after visiting the hospital of the future folks at the Global Research Center. One of the things they’re working on is home monitoring equipment and I wondered how you could make this feel more normal for folks that need it by getting people to voluntarily use it to monitor (and optimize) their own behavior.
As this article points out, collecting data around health is pretty natural:
Self-surveillance naturally lends itself to tracking physical health and biometrics. If we think of our bodies as fine-tuned machines, then it is perhaps best we pay close attention to how we take care of them with a healthy lifestyle. Numerous studies have shown that the food we eat and the amount of time we exercise plays a major role in how we feel, and preliminary research suggests that self-monitoring increases awareness, which leads to better decisions.
if you’re into self-surveillance and health, definitely check out keas (http://keas.com/). still in beta and under wraps, but the founder – ex-Microsoft/Google exec Adam Bosworth – is a close family friend of mine, and is friends with Bruce Winterton…
It seems, from the data, that the entire Country could really benefit from something like this. I would volunteer in a heartbeat, but the question would be one of cost. How could the average American pay for something like this?
Great question Ricky, I’m not sure …
I’ll be very interested in how this progresses… sounds like a game changing concept!