"'Self-knowledge through numbers' can surely only exacerbate the malaise it claims to cure."

Quantified Self: The algorithm of life

by Josh Cohen 

/ FEBRUARY 5, 2014 / 8 COMMENTS

Will the search for self-knowledge through numbers bring greater self-awareness or drive us to ultimate distraction?

"Perhaps the QS movement is nothing more than a problem masquerading as its own solution. “Self-knowledge through numbers” can surely only exacerbate the malaise it claims to cure. In the vain hope of realising the goal of a fully quantified self, new tracking devices are invented, marketed and implemented, more data accumulated and shared, which in turn highlight new gaps in self-knowledge, engender more devices and create more gaps in a torturously repetitive infinity."