The Quantified Self: The Practice of Personal Science

The scientific revolution that began four hundred years ago was powered by the uncanny visibility of things that had long been hidden: celestial objects through telescopes, cells through microscopes. Today, new instruments are bringing hidden aspects of human life into view. The rise of automatic systems to track and monitor behavior has given us new ways to plan, reflect and change. One name for this emerging field is personal informatics. I prefer a different name: personal science. I will talk about some of the interesting experiments and unusual practices that have been reviewed at the Quantified Self over the last three years, and then invite some discussion about the implications of these new technologies of self-knowledge.

Speaker: Gary Wolf, Contributing Editor, Wired Magazine