On the risks of the quantified-self

Despite critics’ opinions self-measurement will free our minds from petty tasks such as counting calories and leave room for new fields of creative exploration.

Skeptics worry that data harvesters will induce passivity and wan alienation, cocooning compulsive self-trackers inside their feedback loops and subtracting emotion and serendipity from the human equation—the poetry, the ambiguity, the moonbeams in a jar. Thereby reducing life to one long flowchart […] Such low-burning fires don’t excite the imagination. Epic myth and pop culture favor the bold gesture and rash gamble over marbled reason. —Wired Up! Ready to Go!

January 9, 2013 ☼ quotes