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Abstract
As a result of digital and mobile technology, various kinds of monitoring practices are moving back and forth knowledge hierarchies. The analytics of bodily and mental functions is no longer the privileged domain of professionals. This essay focuses on the ways in which everyday analytics, heart-rate monitoring in particular, becomes embedded and normalized in daily practices and by doing so, paves the way for new market developments. The discussion contributes to the markets-as-practice approach that treats markets as outcomes of processes in which marketable devices are both shaped by, and shape, practices in the market itself. By relying on practice theory, the essay traces historical developments and identifies domain extensions in self-tracking. Everyday analytics progresses with the aid of new devices; however, these are only successful in moving and recruiting consumers if they promote emotional and practical engagements that generate conditions for current and renewed monitoring practices.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference entitled Making Sense of Consumption in Gothenburg, Sweden. We thank the session organizers and editors of this special issue, Helene Brembeck, Franck Cochoy, Johanna Moisander; CMC editor Jonathan Schroeder; as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and critiques. Thanks also Raija Laukkanen and Marie-Louise Karttunen for their contributions.
Funding
This article was supported by SalWe Research Programme for Mind and Body (Tekes – The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation [grant 1104/10]).
Notes
1. For instance, the following scenario by Dertouzos (Citation1997, 117) is telling:
Fully awake, you head to the bathroom. You brush your teeth, and some of your mellow disposition starts to disappear. That terrible sink is at it again. It has detected minor traces of blood from your gums and is now scolding you in a deep parental voice: “At the rate you are going there is a fifty-fifty chance that you will have a periodontal incident in twelve to fifteen months and a loss of half your teeth by the time you are fifty-five years old.” Mumbling to yourself, you reach for the rubber tip and hope for the best.
2. Mika Pantzar has also served in the scientific board of a leading manufacturer of heart-rate measuring devices (Polar Electro, 2004–2010). In this work he has met and communicated with health and sport activists with regard to evolving forms of self-tracking.
3. In light of our empirical research people are interested in daily routines and practices, but also in the exceptional: creative processes, disruptions in everyday rhythms, encounters with people whom they like or dislike. They are concerned about sequences of events that stress them, or help them to recover; they would like to understand the difference between stress that makes them perform better, and stress that is draining and possibly damaging to well-being. In contrast to medical experts, non-experts are thus more interested in multiple structural and causal elements in daily lives, curious to monitor constructs like “idle time”, “work flow”, or “respectful encounters with others” (Ruckenstein Citation2012).