Blogpost 10: Google Glass, the self-tracking device that sees and hears. (Sarah Khoo)
In Crawford, Lingel and Karppi's article on self-tracking and wearables, they establish that the advancement of data tracking and technology have allowed the data collected to be stored in the databases of the digital companies, allowing for data to flow both ways within the social networks. The authors suggest that with such tracking devices being made accessible to the public, there are inevitable consequences with regards to the epistemological, legal and physiological aspects.
They use the weighing scale to illustrate the effects of having a self-tracking device so easily accessible and close to home. Once, the weighing scales was a tool used by professionals, such as doctors to keep track of their patient's physique. However, by allowing all individuals access to the weighing scale, and further marketing the device to serve the purpose of defining one's qualities. It has caused people to become overly obsessed with monitoring their measurements and maintaining the "perfect" results. The authors posit that with the growing trend of wearable self-tracking devices, this pattern would likely repeat itself more intensely, encouraging users to become very fixated on self-analysing their data. By portraying the concept of self-tracking as an ideal and important aspect of becoming a fully realised human being, it sets a standard that is based on embedded assumptions and norms, which is potentially very harmful for the users to base their identities on. They further highlight that users will not know how this data is being used, and who gets access to it. They bring up the economic value of such personal data — should companies acquire and capitalise on such information, how would one's perception of reality shift with the ever-changing set of norms being set by the market and thus the larger society? We can this phenomenon being reflected in the growing technology in the form of glasses.
With the steady advancement of technologies, many main companies of the digital space such as Google and Facebook have taken to developing face-mounted wearables. Google had released into the marketplace their relatively new product, Glass, which is a pair of spectacles that uses a small, lightweight wearable computer with a transparent display as the lenses, being marketed as "a hands-free device for smarter and faster hands-on work." Glass is being marketed towards companies, encouraging corporations to equip their workers with this device to aid them in their work. It promises users the ability to stay focused on their tasks with its intuitive interface, as well as improves accuracy and allows for real-time collaboration. This suggests that Glass will have the ability to record videos and audio in real time, and project images digitally through the lenses. Despite the potential benefits of these wearable devices, using the lens that Crawford, Lingel and Karppi offers, the implications of such devices seem to connote much more sinister possibilities. With these portable glasses potentially being able to track one's everyday life, it opens the door to many other possibilities. For one, that users have the ability to record every waking moment of their lives. This could potentially lead to an increasing sense of being so closely monitored, having to regulate their actions to maintain a "good" image. Instead of serving as a device that improves the users' wellbeing, it potentially threatens to become a surveillance camera that micro-manages the user.
Furthermore, as Crawford, Lingel and Karppi's article suggests, this device could potentially become adapted to appeal to the general public, exacerbating any negative implications that this device could lead to. For example, having a device that allows individuals to constantly record themselves would allow users to nitpick at every action and word, and creating a new need to refine their everyday habits to curate and portray their ideal concept of "self". This further expands into the possibility of commoditising all this data, intensifying the reach of personalised advertising.
As the authors mentioned, these devices often portray an inaccurate read of the data it collects. The weighing scale had set a standard that might seem ideal but in actuality is very much unhealthy. The same pattern of events could be reflected in these high-tech eyewear too.