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Devotion to self-tracking has a name -- "Quantified Self" -- which is a website established by Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf, Wired contributing editor. Wolf's own website, Aether, says more than 12,000 people worldwide are members of Quantified Self Meetups.
Inside Larry Smarr's refrigerator this week was a stool sample that he planned to ship to a laboratory, which will send back a report of information about what's going on inside Smarr.
This monthly test is not part of his doctor's orders, nor is the plethora of mobile technologies that Smarr uses to track what's going on inside his body. But Smarr believes everyone should take charge of monitoring their own health, given how little time people tend to spend actually talking to their doctors.
Smarr may be an extreme example, but many people are turning to available technologies to gain knowledge about their bodies that they can use to optimize their health, beyond what information annual doctor's visits might bring.
"I am trying to respect my doctor by doing my part of the homework," said Smarr, 63, of La Jolla, California. Smarr is the director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, a research center at the University of California's San Diego and Irvine campuses.
As of Thursday, there were 873 people registered for the Quantified Self message boards, where people discuss the latest apps and research. The website has a list of hundreds of apps and tools available for tracking different aspects of your life, from mood to diet to sleep. The movement hosted the conference Quantified Self 2012 last weekend, with Smarr as a guest speaker.
Via nrip
