The Quantified Relationship

Abstract

The growth of self-tracking and personal surveillance has given rise to the Quantified Self movement. Members of this movement seek to enhance their personal well-being, productivity, and self-actualization through the tracking and gamification of personal data. The technologies that make this possible can also track and gamify aspects of our interpersonal, romantic relationships. Several authors have begun to challenge the ethical and normative implications of this development. In this article, we build upon this work to provide a detailed ethical analysis of the Quantified Relationship (QR). We identify eight core objections to the QR and subject them to critical scrutiny. We argue that although critics raise legitimate concerns, there are ways in which tracking technologies can be used to support and facilitate good relationships. We thus adopt a stance of cautious openness toward this technology and advocate the development of a research agenda for the positive use of QR technologies.

Keywords:

• quantified self
• quantified relationship
• data ethics
• privacy
• love

Notes

1. One might wish to distinguish between these terms on the basis that logging requires voluntary effort to input data whereas tracking takes place automatically once a device is switched on; however, we use the terms interchangeably.

2. The movement has its own webpage, with extensive information about Quantified Self technologies, meetups, and conferences: www.quantifiedself.com (accessed August 22, 2016).

3. All of that said, we do wish to note that while many of the QR technologies we discuss focus on sexual behaviors, we do not consider that “intimate” or “romantic” relationships must necessarily involve sexual interaction. Some might wonder, then, what distinguishes such nonsexual intimate or romantic relationships from “mere friendship,” and our answer is that there is no clear-cut line. Instead, using the cluster concept approach, there will only be relatively more or less proximate clusterings around paradigmatic cases; readers can decide for themselves where the boundary—however vague it may be—lies within their own minds, and evaluate our arguments and examples accordingly.

4. In this manner, we highlight the similarity between the use of QR technologies and the use of enhancement technologies more generally in intimate relationships (e.g., Earp et al. 2013; Earp and Savulescu 2017; Wudarczyk et al. 2013). With respect to the latter, it has been argued that some of the main concerns that have been raised so far should not be seen as ruling out the development or use of such technologies altogether. Rather, those concerns should be seen as helping us to avoid especially bad outcomes (and foster better outcomes) as different forms of relationship-enhancing technologies increasingly become available (Naar 2016; Earp et al. 2014; 2015; 2016; Gupta 2013).

5. This label is potentially misleading. While most of the apps and technologies we will discuss track and log quantifiable data (e.g., frequency and duration of sex), that is not all they do. In some cases, they also track and log qualitative data (e.g., the content of text message conversations). A similar problem applies to the “Quantified Self” label (Lupton 2016). In the latter case, however, the term has already taken hold in popular discourse, such that the invention of a new term would only lead to confusion. Therefore, we have decided to use “Quantified Relationship”—by analogy—to emphasize the continuity of our discussion with that parallel phenomenon.

³⁹ This app can be used either in- or outside the context of a relationship. We are here primarily interested in its potential uses within a specific relationship.

6. See “Spreadsheets App Good in Bed,” Huffington Post, August 13, 2013, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/13/spreadsheets-app-good-in-bed_n_3748719.html (accessed January 13, 2017).

7. See https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sextracker/id498388008?mt=8 (accessed January 13, 2017).

8. See http://www.sexkeeperapp.com (accessed January 13, 2017).

9. See http://nipple.io/about (accessed January 13, 2017).

10. See https://www.ourlovely.com (accessed March 21, 2017).

11. See http://www.minnalife.com/products/kgoal (accessed January 13, 2017) and also http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/26/7892551/kgoal-kegel-exercises-device-review (accessed January 13, 2017).

12. See http://couplete.me (accessed January 13, 2017).

13. https://avocado.io

14. See https://couple.me (accessed January 13, 2017).

15. See https://between.us/?lang=en (accessed January 13, 2017).

16. See https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kouply/id499184239?mt=8 (accessed January 13, 2017).

17. For details, see “Kahnoodle Makes Reigniting Your Relationship into a Game,” Huffington Post, August 9, 2013, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/kahnoodle-app-makes-reigniting-your-relationship-into-a-game_n_3732916.html (accessed January 13, 2017).

18. See https://glowing.com (accessed January 13, 2017).

19. For details on both, see https://mic.com/articles/133048/download-fredrick-a-period-tracking-app-for-men and http://nypost.com/2016/02/21/students-create-app-that-tracks-partners-menstrual-cycle (accessed January 13, 2017).

20. See http://loving-couple-essential.soft112.com (accessed January 13, 2017).

21. A reviewer for this article wonders how this is any different from just calling your partner and waking them with a ringtone. One difference is that with the app, you can actually see where the partner is—via coordinates on a digital map—when certain settings are activated, before remotely setting off the alarm; the alarm itself may also differ from a standard ringtone (e.g., by being more strident). Depending upon the spatial resolution of the map and the accuracy of the coordinates, you might be able to infer that your partner is in, say, the bedroom (although this still does not ensure that the person is sleeping). With a regular phone call, by contrast, you don't typically know where your partner is unless you have some prior arrangement or understanding, or you draw a more general inference from, for example, the time of day it is and what you know about your partner's usual schedule. Nevertheless, we admit that “line” between what you can do with this specific app, and what you may be able to achieve by other technologically mediated means, whether now or in the future, is blurry. Thus, when it comes to evaluating the ethical status of any particular QR technology, it will be important to get clear about the details. An app that allows you to activate an alarm on your partner's phone, even if it is on silent mode, for example, is importantly different from just calling your partner under the same conditions and going straight to voicemail (it is unclear from the online description of the alarm function in Loving-Couple Essential which of these is closer to the mark). Similarly, an app that allows you to switch on the camera from your partner's phone at any time, with or without their consent or awareness, will present very different ethical challenges compared to an app that merely allows your partner to voluntarily send you his or her geospatial location (the former does not appear to be possible with Loving-Couple Essential, although other technologies do allow this—see our earlier reference to Flexispy). As a more general point, we stress that the novelty of the app-based possibilities we discuss is not what is of greatest ethical interest. Indeed, it has been possible for people to quantify aspects of their intimate relationships for centuries. What matters, rather, are the uses to which current and future tracking technologies are likely to be put, the ease with which they can be put to such uses, the scope of the tracking they facilitate, and so on.

22. See http://lovebyte.us (accessed January 13, 2017).

23. See https://www.flexispy.com (accessed January 13, 2017).

24. To be clear, we don't endorse this view here. We simply raise it arguendo.

25. The reference to Finkel goes back to Susie Neilson, “When a Relationship Becomes a Game,” The Atlantic, August 8, 2013, available at http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/when-a-relationship-becomes-a-game/278459.

26. Or if they are disloyal, this is part of an open agreement with their partner(s).

27. We assume a gender binary here because most of the apps seem to assume a gender binary. But there is no reason why QR technologies could not be targeted at persons who do not conform to such a binary (e.g., intersex individuals).

28. As Barbara Wootton once noted, it is far easier to “put up a clinic,” in order to treat individual symptoms of some widespread problem, than it is “to pull down a slum,” that is, the ultimate source of the problem (Wootton 1959). For further discussion, see Griffy-Brown et al. (2018).

29. In one sense, this analysis could be seen as too simplistic, insofar as one believes that no technology is inherently bad, but rather (and because) “it all depends on how it is used.” We disagree with this view, however. Following the work of technology theorists such as Lewis Mumford (2010), we believe that some technologies can be value laden, that is, that their design can intrinsically bias us in particular moral directions, whether positive or negative. Indeed, many of the objections we outline in Table 2 presume such a view and argue that QR tracking apps are precisely the sort of technology that may bias us in such a way, albeit more often in an unproductive or negative direction. We then respond to this possibility by highlighting some of the more positive orientations that also exist within these technologies, and by suggesting ways in which users might push back against the more negative orientations.

30. We use the term agency in an appeal to feminist theory (Abrams 1998). Some feminists reject the use of concepts like freedom and autonomy on the grounds that they presume an overly dualistic and atomistic understanding of human behavior. Autonomy, for them, signifies a rational individual standing free from social forces of determination. “Agency” is proposed instead of autonomy on the grounds that it presumes that the individual is always shaped by and constrained within a network social practices and discourses. An individual can have more or less agency, depending on how these practices and discourses operate. Men, typically, have more agency than women due to their privileged position within the network of social practices and discourses. The arguments and evaluations we present in the text work, we believe, with either a contemporary, nuanced understanding of autonomy or a feminist understanding of agency.

31. We thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this issue; the quotation comes from the reviewer.

32. Such as one of the reviewers for this article.

33. More generally, as an anonymous reviewer kindly pointed out, several branches of the research and therapeutic literature on sex and relationships are explicitly premised on tracking and quantifying relationship data. The pioneering studies of Masters and Johnson, and of Kinsey, take this form. Additionally, the Gottman Institute's popular methods for predicting and maintaining relationship stability rely on quantified algorithms (for information see: http://www.gottman.com). These points not only suggest potentially useful collaborations for developers of QR apps, but they also highlight that quantification and metricization are not by their very nature anathema to well-functioning relationships.

34. There could of course be other negative consequences associated with commodification, or other background ethical issues that need to be factored into the analysis (e.g., perhaps changing the stigma against selling kidneys will pressure or coerce people into giving up their kidneys; but see Semrau 2015). We have no stake in the kidney donation debate and the existence of such negative consequences doesn't refute the basic point we are trying to make, namely, if the beneficial consequences of a practice are sufficiently great, it may warrant attempts to change the negative meanings that are presently associated with it.

35. This should not be taken to imply that consequences are all that matter in relationships. Other nonconsequentialist duties could still apply. The point we are making here only has to do with the impact of consequences on how we should approach the meaning of particular behaviors or practices within a relationship.

36. Some might say we are dooming ourselves with this example. Soule and Reeves could break up in the future. Their relationship may not work out. But we think this concern is misplaced. Relationships should not be measured solely in terms of their duration; some relationships ought to end; and the fact that given relationship does in fact end (or significantly changes its form or character) does not mean that the relationship was a failure. For our purposes, what matters is that this approach works for Soule and Reeves in the here and now.

37. We thank one of our anonymous reviewers for raising this concern.

38. See, for example, https://citizensense.net