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The Quantified Self: Can Life Be Measured?

The 'quantified self' movement promises that life-logging and data-tracking can make us smarter. Frances Stonor Saunders asks whether by measuring what we do we miss who we are.

Self knowledge through numbers is the motto of the "quantified self" movement. Calories consumed, energy expended, work done, places visited or how you feel. By recording the data of your daily life online, the life-loggers claim, you get to know who you really are.

So far this type of self-tracking is the obsession of a geeky minority. But through our smartphones and social networking sites more and more of us being drawn into this world by stealth. Frances Stonor Saunders asks what it means for our ideas about privacy and sense of self.

Producer: Fiona Leach.

Available now

30 minutes

Last on

Sun 16 Jun 2013 21:30

Broadcasts

  • Mon 10 Jun 2013 20:30
  • Sun 16 Jun 2013 21:30

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