Self-Knowledge Through Self-Tracking Devices Design Guidelines for Usability and a Socio-Technical Examination from Posthumanity Perspective

The Digital Era introduces emerging product categories that have evolved around certain habits and concepts. One tendency in the Information Age is recording and storing quantitative and qualitative data based on an individual's life by using lifelogging and activity monitoring devices. Such products, bringing self-observation and autobiographical memory capabilities to an extreme level, have the potential to morph human beings by augmenting and altering their self-understanding through presenting previously non-existent information regarding their lives. The diversity found in this product range is increasing parallel to the growing demand. However, the meaning of these products for human life is rarely discussed. It remains a question whether these personal logs lead to an enriched self-knowledge for their users or not. This study aims to investigate the design principles and the influences of self-tracking products and services on daily life within a socio-technical framework in order to establish a connection between self-tracking by ubiquitous computing devices and the notion of self-concept.