Digital self-tracking,habits and the myth of discontinuance: It doesn’t just ‘stop’

Abstract

Digital self-tracking devices increasingly inhabit everyday landscapes, yet many people abandon self-trackers not long after acquisition. Although research has examined why people discontinue these devices, less explores what actually happens when people unplug. This article addresses this gap by considering the embodied and habitual dimensions of self-tracking and discontinuance. We consider the potential for digital data – and their unanticipated affects – to linger within habitual practices even after the device is abandoned. We draw on the philosophies of Felix Ravaisson and Gilles Deleuze to understand habit as a capacity for change, rather than a performance of sameness. We trace how self-tracking prompts new embodiments that continue to unfold even after people disengage. In decentring the device as our object of attention, we trouble the logic that self-tracking simply ‘stops’ in its absence. This holds implications for theorizing human–digital relations and for how self-tracking health interventions are implemented and evaluated.

Keywords

Abandonment Deleuze discontinuance embodiment habit self-tracking

Introduction

Digital self-tracking technologies, such as smartwatches and wearable devices, have become so ubiquitous in our social, medical and research landscapes as to border on the mundane. Both marketed and embraced as desirable tools for behaviour change efforts (Millington, 2018; Neff and Nafus, 2016) wearable self-tracking devices have become part of what James Gilmore (2016) refers to as ‘everywear’; a term used to capture the pervasiveness of wearable fitness technologies and the accompanying mobile apps that track and monitor activity. These devices are designed to capture any number of bodily outputs, ranging from sleep, step count, heart rate and mood that are then quantified for the user, providing novel insights into the body’s workings and supporting self-improvement projects. Digital self-trackers are also increasingly integrated into public health interventions aimed at altering and managing various health behaviours (Feng et al., 2021).

Continuous and long-term self-tracking is positioned as the default, preferred behaviour assumed to lead to desirable outcomes. Yet, a large proportion of people who use self-trackers eventually abandon their devices, often within the first 6 months of use (Ledger, 2014; Ledger and McCaffrey, 2014; Lee and Lee, 2017). This is incommensurable with the narrative of continuous self-improvement underpinning digital self-tracking and device discontinuance is therefore positioned as a problem to be addressed or ‘fixed’. Dominant frames for examining discontinuance generally suggest the problem lies either in the device itself (e.g. design flaw) or within the individual using the device (e.g. lack of motivation or compliance) (Epstein et al., 2016a; Shih et al., 2015).

In this arrangement, discontinuance continues to be understood as antithetical to self-tracking and a preoccupation with the device itself is maintained. Despite the social salience of this logic, it has been compellingly demonstrated that people rarely use self-tracking devices in predictable or continuous ways, instead usage is often episodic and sporadic, with the device shifting in and out of focus (Gorm and Shklovski, 2019; Lazar et al., 2015). Research also suggests self-tracking experiences and meaning-making processes are deeply idiosyncratic and shaped by myriad contextual and personal factors (Nafus and Sherman, 2014; Pantzar and Ruckenstein, 2015; Sharon and Zandbergen, 2017). Consequently, the logic of continuous self-tracking as productive of predictable outcomes is demonstrably precarious. While this notion is perhaps gaining traction, less attention has been paid to what actually happens when people stop actively using the device.

In this article, we further examine the temporalities of self-tracking and question the assumption that self-tracking ceases in the absence of the device. We refer to this as the myth of discontinuance. Myths act as sense-making devices that embody and circulate collective knowledges explain histories and complex phenomena (Losada Goya, 2012). However, these knowledges are not always truths, nor are they often subject to interrogation. Multiple myths circulate around digital self-tracking, including the notion that the neoliberal subject is always in need of self-improvement, that self-tracking contributes to linear processes of improvement, and, of importance to this article, the idea that self-tracking is only actively taking place in the presence of the device.

Here, we attempt to interrogate the latter by exploring further the assumption that self-tracking ‘stops’ when devices are abandoned. Instead, we suggest that as devices become habituated and integrated into daily routines and gestures, it follows that self-tracking – in some form – persists when the device is removed. New habits and practices emerging through self-tracking linger in people’s routines, reflections and habitual orientations. Here, we explore self-trackers experiences of discontinuing their digital devices, drawing on data gathered through focus groups held with young adults who were asked to wear digital self-trackers as part of a larger study (Clark and Driller, 2020; Driller et al., 2017). We take up the concept of habit as imagined by philosophers Felix Ravaisson and Gilles Deleuze. These scholars reject understandings of habit as predictable repetitions of sameness. Rather, habit is understood as dynamic and creative, generating new capacities. This line of thinking helps to consider how digital self-tracking, as an embodied, contextual practice, produces transformations that linger even in the absence of the device itself. We suggest that this counters the existing dichotomy present in discussions of self-tracking and discontinuance and expands scholarly and practical dialogue in meaningful ways.

Living with self-tracking devices

Digital self-tracking devices provide quantified outputs of bodily performances that users can then draw upon to inform future behaviours. These technologies are often celebrated for their convenience and affordability and have been integrated into a number of health interventions with a range of populations (Cadmus-Bertram et al., 2015; Chung et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2015). Yet critical scholars have articulated how digital self-tracking is largely underpinned by neoliberal self-optimization narratives in which people enthusiastically capture, monitor and track any range of bodily metrics to improve various aspects of their physical wellbeing (Depper and Howe, 2017; Lupton, 2017b; Sanders, 2017). Through this lens, self-tracking can act as a tool of disciplinary and biopower, normalizing certain behaviours and constructing arbitrary understandings of health, while also intensifying self-surveillance. Extending discussions on the instrumental benefits and perils of self-tracking, research into the lived experience of self-trackers suggests the practice of digital self-tracking can be pleasurable, playful, emotional and deeply idiosyncratic (Clark and Driller, 2020; Lupton, 2019; Nafus and Sherman, 2014; Ruckenstein, 2014), transforming how people feel about and understand their bodies, and yielding unpredictable results. For example, a busy and exhausting day may yield a disappointing result on a movement tracking device – despite the energy expended – because it was not measurable or ‘seen’ by the device’s sensors. A dissonance thus exists between one’s embodied experiences and practices, and what is captured, or not, by digital data. An emerging body of literature also draws attention to the deeply embodied and sensory dimensions of self-tracking (Lupton, 2017a; Lupton et al., 2018b; Lupton and Maslen, 2018). This scholarship emphasizes the social, material and affective aspects of self-tracking and illuminates how people engage with and make sense of these devices and digital data within specific socio-material contexts.

The literature cited above suggests that self-tracking is not simply an instrumental practice. Rather, it is composed of ‘highly personalized experiences that are embedded in our daily lives, routines and interpersonal relationships’ (Pink et al., 2016: 44). As self-tracking devices are inserted into lives and onto bodies, new adaptations, orientations and habits emerge as people create new gestures, routines and ways of moving through the world. Kristensen and Ruckenstein (2018) use the term ‘co-evolution’ to describe how humans live alongside and both transform and are transformed by their digital data and devices. As digital self-trackers become embedded and integrated into everyday lives, the practice of self-tracking becomes less discrete and remarkable. Rather, as Kristensen and Ruckenstein note, the devices and the data they generate become ‘a part of everyday sense-making, reminding people of what they already know and to what they aspire’ (p. 3635).

Discontinuance and the temporalities of self-tracking

Despite the possibilities presented by digital self-tracking devices and their widespread presence in our daily lives, research suggests that many people stop wearing their device, not long after starting (Ledger and McCaffrey, 2014). Common reasons for discontinuing or abandoning self-tracking devices include technical difficulties or inconveniences (such as forgetting to charge the device), physical discomfort, loss of interest, the belief that the data are simply not useful anymore or at all, and a sense that data do not reflect users’ perceptions of themselves (Clawson et al., 2015; Epstein et al., 2016b; Lee and Lee, 2017; Lupton, 2018a; Lyall et al., 2019; Shih et al., 2015). The underlying logic of digital self-tracking equates discontinuance of the device with a ‘failed’ attempt at self-optimization. Discontinuance or abandonment is thus positioned as something to be ‘fixed’ or addressed either through enhanced technological design or behavioural interventions that seek to improve human compliance.

Scholars within human–computer interaction studies have examined the phenomenon of device abandonment and considered not only reasons for abandonment, but the nuanced ways abandonment is enacted. Clawson et al. (2015) and Lyall et al. (2019) analyse online advertisements for self-tracking devices featured on secondhand buy-sell websites, such as Craigslist and Gumtree. In their analysis of advertisements on the US-based Craigslist, Clawson et al. (2015) pay attention to personal stories attached to the ads. Authors present the concept of ‘happy abandonment’ to acknowledge situations in which self-tracking devices are abandoned or discontinued because technology has ‘successfully served its intended purpose and achieved the point of retirement’ (p. 654). Both Clawson et al. (2015) and Lyall et al. (2019) emphasize that self-tracking unfolds in messy, unpredictable contexts and trouble the idea that abandonment is a failure on the part of either device or user.

These studies suggest device discontinuance or abandonment does not always reflect a ‘failure’ on the part of the user or the design and starts to surface the idiosyncratic ways self-tracking may be performed, experienced and interpreted. While a consistent, predictable pattern of use is presumed to be associated with pre-determined, desirable health outcomes, research has shown people often use self-trackers in sporadic, irregular ways and actively limit or increase their engagement with the device depending upon multiple personal and contextual factors (Didžiokaitė et al., 2018; Gorm and Shklovski, 2019; Hand and Gorea, 2018; Kristensen and Ruckenstein, 2018; Nafus and Sherman, 2014). For example, Nafus and Sherman (2014) found that people start and stop using self-tracking devices in somewhat haphazard, but purposeful ways, while often turning to other devices, effectively disrupting flows of quantified corporeal information. Gorm and Shklovski (2019) examine the episodic use of self-tracking devices, noting that people actively decide when to use their self-tracking and when not to depending on myriad personal, social and practical considerations. They frame this episodic use as a practice of care that allows people to actively determine and manage the affective dimensions of self-tracking. For example, they may choose not to wear their device when they know they may not reach their steps (due to other responsibilities and time constraints), so as to alleviate feelings of guilt or disappointment. The agency of those who use self-tracking devices is also emphasized as they emerge as active participants in the self-tracking process, not ‘blind, mindless dupes, but as active participants’ that do not always comply with the temporal logics of the device to track continuously (Nafus and Sherman, 2014: 1793). Attending to the biographical–historical temporalities of self-tracking also draws attention to how user experiences are shaped by personal and political pasts, presents and anticipated futures (Saukko and Weedon, 2020).

Through these studies, we recognize digital self-tracking devices are not always used in the ways imagined or intended, but instead are often repurposed according to the specific contexts, histories and needs of those using the device. Temporalities of self-tracking are also unpredictable, non-linear and deeply shaped by the broader social, material and political conditions in which people live (Gorm and Shklovski, 2019; Nafus and Sherman, 2014). While the above research acknowledges the deeply contextual, sensory and affective practices of self-tracking, the focus remains largely on the device and the digital data it generates. The act of self-tracking is always contingent upon the device itself. What happens when the device is no longer worn remains unexamined or framed as ‘non-compliance’ within public health interventions and evaluations employing wearable digital trackers. We question this dichotomous framing of self-tracking as something that is either continued in the presence of the device or abandoned and ‘stopped’ in the absence of the device. As a sensory, embodied practice, we think it feasible that self-tracking, in some form, continues even when the device is taken off temporarily or permanently.

Just as digital data leave traces in material and virtual flows of information, it follows that self-tracking practices also leave traces with the potential to linger in corporeal habits, practices and gestures. However, what happens ‘after’ the device is discontinued falls beyond the scope of much existing research. One exception is provided by Epstein et al. (2016b) who used survey methodology to interrogate self-tracking abandonment practices for people who used self-tracking technologies to monitor physical activity, finances and location. Results suggest that for some, interest in self-tracking simply faded, particularly for those not overly invested in the activity of concern. Feelings of guilt were often common after discontinuing the advice but so too were feelings of freedom, of being relieved from the ‘hassle’ and ‘burden’ of continuous monitoring (p. 1112). Of relevance to this study is the finding that some participants continued to use the new knowledge or skills gained while actively self-tracking even after discontinuing the device. For example, a small number of financial trackers described how becoming more aware of their spending habits alleviated the need for self-tracking as they were able to create structural changes (e.g. budgets) and maintain the changes made while actively using tracking technologies or software. Contributing to this emerging scholarship interrogating tracking beyond the tracker, in what follows we explore the habits, sensations and inclinations that persist and transform when the device is discarded or removed. In doing so, this article contributes to discussions of digital materialities and the embodied relations that unfold between the human and the technological.

Theoretical framework

On habit, corporeality and gesture

Habits are generally understood as repetitive, automatic actions and gestures that develop over time, becoming so familiar as to require little thought (Malabou, 2008). This understanding has driven psychological and health-related research concerned with how ‘good’ habits are created and sustained and ‘bad’ habits broken, often in relation to behaviours, such as physical activity, smoking cessation and diet (Gardner et al., 2012). Perhaps unsurprisingly, habit formation has been examined in relation to the use of self-trackers with long-term usage of self-tracking devices framed as a habit to be created and manipulated (Peng et al., 2021). In this arrangement, the end goal is the formation of the habit itself, understood as the fixed repetition of sameness and as yielding (in this case) desirable, predictable outcomes.

Yet the philosophers Felix Ravaisson, Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze offer alternative understandings of habit. Rather than a ‘stultifying mechanism’ of repetitive action habit is imagined as a ‘dynamic force of repetition and continuity that makes change possible’ (Lapworth, 2015: 86). Habit for these thinkers is not something to be managed or regulated, but rather part of subjectivity; central to the generative processes implicated in how humans make sense of the world and creatively constitute themselves within it (Grosz, 2013). We argue that drawing on this conceptualization of habit is much more fruitful for understanding the experience of self-tracking our participants described, in which sensations of tracking were felt beyond the practices of active tracking in the presence of the device.

Departing from mechanistic understandings of habit, Ravaisson (1838/2008), and after him, Deleuze (1968/1994), imagine habit as repetitive performances and gestures that create certain efficiencies and dispositions; in turn ‘freeing-up’ capacities for new ways of being and knowing. Although Ravaisson (1838/2008) does position thought as the origin of action, he argues that the action, once willed, loses its association with consciousness. He emphasizes that habit goes beyond consciousness and becomes an inclination. Repetition here is still important, but rather than producing fixity and sameness, repetition emerges as ‘an aptitude for change’ (Malabou, 2008, see also Deleuze [1968] 1994). Repetition, as Ravaisson conceives it, involves the shifting of the action towards anticipation and inclination, ‘it excites the power of movement’ (2008: 53). It is here the creative capacity of habit emerges; habit is generative of desires that do not reside in the conscious awareness of a subject, but instead are generated only through the repetition of the action.

If we take seriously this account of habit as deeply material and corporeal, rather than disciplining the body into sameness, habit harnesses corporeal forces for the creation of new tendencies, capacities and dispositions. As Grosz (2013: 221) puts it ‘[h]abits provide the ability to change one’s tendencies, to reorient one’s actions to address the new, and to be able to experience the unexpected’. The implication for self-tracking habits is significant here. The habits that make self-tracking possible, then, are constituted by a constellation of creative tendencies and capacities for tracking – rather than a definitive action that either exists or is discontinued. Focussing primarily on the device itself – as much of the self-tracking literature does – overlooks how the device is simply a part of the habits and inclinations of self-tracking that continue to become, shift and transform. When the device is inserted into daily life, the body is called upon to adjust and adapt as are modes of awareness and attentiveness. Even if a tracking device is removed, such transformations have taken place and bodily capacities cannot simply return to the state they were before.

Existing ways of thinking about self-tracking, particularly those underlying health interventions, assume the practice ‘stops’ when the device is absent/no longer worn. Here we extend and challenge this assumption and examine what happens when the device is removed. Given the large number of people who both take up and discontinue self-tracking, we argue that these novel insights are valuable across a range of disciplines and hold implications for how self-tracking interventions are implemented and evaluated. In this project, we focussed on three research questions:

What new practices, gestures and orientations to one’s body and environments were formed through digital self-tracking?

How do people who actively use digital self-tracking devices experience ‘stopping’ or discontinuing use of the device?

What embodiments and practices do people notice, if any, in the absence of the device?

Methods

This study was part of a larger project designed to assess the sleep and daily physical activity patterns of student athletes and student non-athletes at a university in Driller et al. (2017). In the larger study, participants (N = 40) were asked to wear a Fitbit for 7–10 days to capture daily step count and sleep. This presented a valuable opportunity to speak to students about their experiences of both wearing and ‘unplugging’ from a digital self-tracking device without additional research burden that may be associated with requesting students to wear a Fitbit solely for this purpose, or for a longer period of time. Therefore, this study employed a convenience sample and all participants in the larger project were invited to partake in voluntary focus groups when they signed up for the study (Patton, 2015).

Our research employs a distinct set of conditions in which individuals are provided a self-tracking device and encouraged to engage in self-tracking behaviour by external agents rather than being self-initiated. The devices are then taken back by the researchers instead of being voluntarily discontinued. We acknowledge this does not mirror the experiences of voluntary self-tracking and discontinuance often captured in the literature and that 7–10 days is a fairly short window of time, in relation to research that suggest many people abandon or discontinue self-tracking devices approximately 6 months after acquisition. Nevertheless, the act of engagement and disengagement still occurs and speaking to people about these experiences in real time contributes meaningfully to scholarly dialogue about the ways self-tracking is experienced and performed in everyday contexts. Furthermore, digital self-tracking devices are increasingly integrated into a variety of health interventions, which involve individuals being asked to wear self-tracking devices, without a comprehensive understanding of how this might shape practices and behaviours in unpredictable ways.

Focus groups were identified as an appropriate method to elicit students’ reflections on wearing and unplugging from a Fitbit and to understand how self-tracking was integrated into their daily life. Focus groups are valuable data collection methods as they allow for a range of viewpoints to be shared, developed and discussed, as well as allowing for consensus on a topic to be explored (Krueger, 2014). Face-to-face discussion in real time allows for insights to be shared, generated and captured not possible in survey methodology. Focus groups also facilitate fruitful interactions between participants and create a ‘cascading or chaining effect’ that encourages participants to build upon each other’s perspectives and ideas (Lindlof and Taylor, 2002:182). This was an important strength of this approach as such in-depth and nuanced ideas may not have emerged in a one-on-one interview.

Participants were recruited from the larger study described above. All participants of that study (N = 40) were invited to participate in the focus group and 30 expressed interest. After scheduling was finalized, 24 were able to attend and four focus groups were held in total. Focus groups ranged in size from four to seven participants, which is deemed appropriate for data saturation (Guest et al., 2017). Sixteen women and eight men participated. The ages of participants ranged from 17 to 21 years, and they represented a variety of schools and departments across campus, including: arts, business, computer science, and health and sport sciences.

Prior to the focus groups, participants wore the original Fitbit Flex model released in 2013 for 7–10 days. The Flex consists of a small sensor, which is inserted into a silicone band worn on the wrist. This sensor captures step count, flights climbed, sleep, hourly activity and energy expenditure. The display consists of five LED lights that light up when tapped to indicate daily step count. Users are required to sync the Fitbit to an Android device or iPhone to view complete data.

Focus groups were held within 14 days after the Fitbit trial was completed. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to the commencement of focus groups. During consent process, participants were informed their data within the designated 7–10-day period were downloaded for research purposes and were encouraged to manage and/or delete their Fitbit account following guidelines at www.fitbit.com. Leaving apps temporarily and/or closing accounts can be complicated for users (Light et al., 2016). Focus groups were held at the university library over noon-hour and light snacks were provided. Ethical approval was obtained from the University Research Ethics Board. Questions were designed to capture participants’ thoughts on wearing the Fitbit (how it made them feel), what new routines or behaviours it prompted (if any) and how/if it shaped their relationships with their bodies. A second set of questions then explored experiences and reflections of life after wearing the Fitbit.

Data analysis

Focus groups were recorded and transcribed verbatim by a professional transcriptionist. Thematic analysis was undertaken to identify the salient overarching themes that emerged in relation to the research question and guiding concepts of habit, embodiment and daily routines. The lead researcher undertook primary analysis guided by the process outlined by (Doody, Slevin, and Taggart, 2013) After each focus group notes were taken to capture the prominent ideas addressed as well as any further reflections. The lead author then became immersed in the data by reading transcripts carefully multiple times. During this process memos were generated by writing notes in the margin and in an evolving analysis document containing short phrases, key ideas and resonant concepts that emerged in the transcripts. These led to the creation of broader categories and themes. Once these were arrived at, authors engaged in deeper interpretation and analysis in an iterative, collaborative process involving online communication, in person meetings and shared writing.

Results

Focus group discussions indicated that the Fitbit became a lively presence in participants’ routines that shifted their attention towards their bodies and environments in new ways. It also prompted the creation of new daily routines, physical gestures and patterns of thinking, even in this relatively short time period. All participants generally enjoyed wearing the device and described being curious about their personalized data. In one focus group, participants explicitly mentioned they were curious about whether or not it would change their ‘habits and routines’ Largely motivated to achieve the 10,000 daily step goal inherently programmed into the Fitbits, many reported increasing their physical activity over the study duration by purposefully engaging in scheduled exercise classes, creating new walking and running routes, and introducing more incidental walking and activity throughout their day. Discussions surfaced the various ways, new (and at times surprising) habits, routines and modes of attention lingered even after participants stopped wearing the Fitbit. We suggest in this way the device persisted as an absent presence and that changes in gesture, awareness and routine, prompted by wearing the device, continued to unfold and evolve even after ‘unplugging’. Here, we explore these ideas through three emergent themes. ‘Lingering Gestures’, ‘Surfacing the Senses’ and ‘Absent Presence’.

Lingering gestures

For some participants, the physical presence of the device itself evoked new sensory experiences and altered performances of everyday activities. Jane explained, ‘I kept forgetting I was wearing it until it banged into my laptop when I was typing . . . I tried to adjust it so it wouldn’t bump but eventually just got used to it’. Paul also noted the feeling on his wrist, ‘It felt weird at first . . . I kept touching it because I never even wear a watch, but after a day or two I didn’t really notice it’. Many shared similar stories of adjusting to the physical presence of the device on their bodies, which in turn prompted new minor gestures. For example, many became continuously oriented to looking at the Fitbit and/or the associated app on their phone in order to check their progress throughout the day. Anne explained, ‘I was always checking my wrist, without even realizing it’. This resonates with previous scholarship that has described how people feel compelled to consistently check their self-tracking device for progress, using the information of the device to legitimize or validate their own embodied knowledges (Hand and Gorea, 2018; Smith and Vonthethoff, 2017). However, it also surfaces the minute corporeal inclinations felt as the body and device become connected in a new relationship, a new entanglement of silicone and sinew that shifts sensations and awareness (Clark and Thorpe, 2020). The sensory and bodily dimensions of self-tracking are made more explicit, and our attention is drawn to the inarticulable ways self-tracking transforms embodied performances and gestures. These subtle changes in inclination and gesture often go unnoticed and are assumed unremarkable, as they fall outside of the behaviours expected and framed as the desirable ends of self-tracking. Nevertheless, these minor gestures shift the way people experience and move their bodies in the world, therefore, prompting new possibilities for future, unpredictable ways of being.

Importantly, these new gestures did not stop or disappear after participants stopped wearing the Fitbit. Instead, many said they continued to look at their wrists and take out their phone to look at the app even after they returned the device. As Remy put it, ‘I kept feeling for it on my wrist and looking at it, even though it wasn’t there’. Lauren added, ‘sometimes after I’ve walked a lot, I automatically look at my wrist to check my steps, it’s a bit of a habit’. In even a short time habitual gestures became sedimented into the body, re-configuring the way daily, even mundane practices are performed and experienced.

Even beyond gestures towards the device itself, participants reported lingering gestures towards their smartphones that were oriented towards accessing the Fitbit data, which they had become accustomed to regularly view. As Damien explained, ‘Even after I stopped wearing it I would still take my phone out of my pocket to check [the app] without really thinking, then I’d be like, oh yeah, there’s nothing to check’. The transformation of smartphone ‘checking’ habits is interesting here. Although frequent checking, without a specific reason, has been pathologized as symptomatic of ‘smartphone addiction’ (Kwon et al., 2013; see, for example: Oulasvirta et al., 2011), other scholars have argued that it is these habitual practices that make everyday smartphone use feel familiar and easy (Southerton and Taylor, 2020). In this context, the smartphone example highlights the ways tracking habits involve not only inclinations towards the Fitbit, but also its connectivity to the smartphone and the physical gestures involved when reaching for that device. The introduction of self-tracking practices impact – and is impacted by – already existing habits formed around the smartphone. The relationship between humans and these devices is tactile, corporeal, and develops and diminishes gradually; it does not disappear or revert in the absence of the physical device. Rather, these practices, relationships and gestures continue to unfold in unpredictable ways into untold, yet-to-be-known futures (Grosz, 2013).

These stories point to the ways self-tracking altered physical routines and embodied practices and importantly, to the ways these newfound gestures and rhythms persist. The insertion of the self-tracking device prompted bodily responses and adaptations, as well as shifts in attention and the creation of new daily routines. Over time, even a short time, many of these changes began to feel regular, even habitual to participants, but did not cease or disappear once the digital tracking device was removed from the equation. Rather, these changes created ways of being and moving through the world that continue to unfold in unpredictable ways, bringing with them their own capacities (Grosz, 2013). The habitual orientations and practices highlighted here were not those that participants desired to shape and manipulate to achieve a desired, pre-defined outcome, but rather were emergent through the relations that unfolded between user, digital device, and data and that continued to persist and evolve over time.

An absent presence

Even when participants were no longer wearing the device, it lingered as a figurative or absent presence, shaping their embodied and affective experiences, and orienting their attention in specific ways. Participants described altering their physical activity practices in some way in response to wearing the Fitbit, most commonly by integrating extended walking routes into existing walking practices (e.g. to and from campus or the bus stop) and the creation of new walking and running routines. Those who adjusted their usual routes described continuing these practices even after the tracker was no longer used. For example, Dylan shared the new route he took to campus while wearing the Fitbit, which was approximately 1 km longer than his usual route, was now his default.

It’s a way nicer route, I get to go along the river for a while and even though it’s a bit longer I just like it better, so I’m still doing it . . . and I don’t care about the steps at all, but everything else about it . . . I get to clear my head and unwind on the way home, it’s actually changed how I feel. I don’t know if I would have started it if I wasn’t wearing [the Fitbit] but now it’s not about the steps at all.

Similarly, several participants described trying out new forms of exercise, such as running while wearing the Fitbit and many continued these activities even after returning the device. Michael started to go for short runs when he started wearing the device ‘out of curiosity’ about how long it would take reach 10,000 steps. Three weeks after returning the device, he was still running a few times a week and ‘had a pretty good idea’ of how far he had run and how many steps he accumulated due to wearing the Fitbit for even a short time. Similarly, Anne said she has maintained the morning running routine created when wearing the Fitbit because she liked how it set up the rest of the day. ‘I got used to getting up early and going for a run, it was a good way to wake up and get it over with and now my body is kind of used to it’. These anecdotes resonate with Epstein et al. (2016b) whose survey research suggested that people who abandoned self-tracking devices and software nevertheless continued to use and apply the knowledges and skills learned. However, our focus group data emphasize the corporeality of these knowledges and disrupt the idea that the knowledges gained through self-tracking are always applied to achieve a specific, pre-defined goal or outcome.

For some, this absent presence materialized in the sense of ‘always being watched’ (Ava). Anna shared ‘I got so used to checking the Fitbit for steps that I felt like I was being watched even when I stopped wearing it . . .’. Ben added,

It took a while for me to realize I wasn’t wearing it anymore and that no one really knew if I went for a run or sat on my butt . . . I just sort of had this feeling hanging over me like ‘ok I should really go for a run . . . gotta get my steps’ . . . and I still do even though it doesn’t really matter because no one would know.

This sense that someone or something was watching even after discontinuance of Fitbit use was shared by many, and points to the capacities of self-tracking devices to intensify self-surveillance and the surveillance of others (Sanders, 2017). For example, some participants shared a sense of persistent guilt after giving up their self-tracker. As Cassie explained,

[Self-tracking] took up a lot of time and energy, I didn’t really realize how much until I stopped, and now I feel relieved but I still feel like I should be doing something but I don’t know what it is.

Notably, this sense of being seen did not stop in the absence of the self-tracking device, but neither did it persist in predictable ways. Rather wearing the device transformed practices and understandings that continued to unfold even in the absence of the device. The Fitbit as a technological form became integrated and entangled in new human-technology relations, prompting the continued becoming and transformation of the ‘more-than-human’ subject. The physical absence of the device does not halt the continuing process of ‘co-evolution’ (Kristensen and Ruckenstein, 2018). There were also participants who described how the abandoned device became an absent presence they still ‘felt’ on the body, not in the terms of self-surveillance but in more mundane and sensory ways. Participants shared stories of continuing to glance at their wrist as though they were checking in with the now absent Fitbit. Many also described touching the wrist previously enclosed by the device, actively looking for the Fitbit to tap the display to check their progress. For example, Ben said, ‘I still look for it on my wrist, I forget it’s not there anymore’. Ben’s account resonates with the phenomenon of the ‘phantom limb’ where an individual who has recently experienced a limb amputation continues to experience what Merleau-Ponty (2005: 95) refers to as the ‘habitual body’ of the past. In Ben’s case, the self-tracker has become incorporated into habitual bodily schematics, which are not simply ‘undone’ or unlearned when the device is removed. Rather they continue to persist and evolve, the device leaving its traces in future becomings.

Many participants echoed similar sentiments to Ben, prompting us to consider how we understand presence, materiality, and the ‘real’. Human geographers have increasingly been interested in the concept of absence as they examine the relational, affective and material dimensions of spatial encounters (Frers, 2013; Scholl et al., 2014). Within these understandings, absence is neither a tangible entity that is ‘missing’, nor an immaterial idea, rather it is through the visceral process of noticing and feeling absence that absence becomes an agentic presence (Frers, 2013). By prompting new noticings, sensations and orientations of attention, absence continues to have an effect.

This finding elaborates on existing research that focusses on how users engage directly (or not) with the device itself, maintaining an assumption that self-tracking occurs only in the presence of the device. Perhaps more accurately, it is simply one element of self-tracking that has been primarily observed; one that is continuous, linear and oriented towards predictable outcomes and made possible by a digital self-tracked device. However, our analysis highlights the more unpredictable transformations that emerge as self-tracking prompts new habits that continue to evolve. As Ravaisson (1838/2008: 25) highlights, ‘habit is the consequence of a change’ but ‘subsists beyond the change which brought it about’. These habits are not attributable to the device itself but to the changes that occurred when self-tracking began – of which the device is only one part. As such, they emerge through the relations between social, digital and corporeal forces that constitute self-tracking practices and can persist and transform far beyond the initial encounter with the self-tracking device.

Surfacing the senses

Participants described how self-tracking informed new knowledges and heightened their awareness and sensitivity to their bodies and physical activity and sleep habits. Smith and Vonthethoff (2017) argue that self-tracking outsources embodied knowledges in favour of quantified metrics. Some of our participants’ accounts support this argument, as they describe how self-tracking prompted unpleasant responses and utilitarian ways of thinking about movement practices, such as walking. For example, in one focus group, lively discussion took place around the concept of guilt. While some participants described ‘forgetting’ about the daily step count goals as soon as the device was given back feeling no guilt, others described how engaging with digital self-tracking data prompted them to feel guilty when they failed to reach their goals even after they stopped wearing the Fitbit. Cassie said,

I hated it, it made me feel so guilty because it’s either like yay you got 10,000 or you didn’t, you failed. I was relieved to take it off but I’m still often thinking ‘oh have I got enough steps today?’ or ‘I should be exercising?’

Ben shared,

now when I walk in the back of mind I’m always thinking . . . I wonder how many steps I’m getting . . . I can no longer just walk for the sake of walking I always have this part of me thinking ‘how many steps is this?’

In these examples, new ways of thinking became familiar, habitual, even in a short amount of time for some participants. Such new ways of thinking lingered and became implicated in meaning-making processes related to physical activity and movement. Within the focus groups, participants questioned the arbitrariness of the 10,000 figure, suggesting that the neoliberal logics of self-optimization is not simply absorbed without question and that the act of self-tracking both embeds and disrupts habitual ways of thinking.

Despite the participants reporting self-tracking eliciting more extractive ways of thinking about their bodies and movement practices, this was not universal. For some, engaging with their digital tracking device and their data prompted them to become more attentive to bodily states and sensations as well as embark on new movement practices. As Sarah described,

I think I noticed how my body felt more, when I moved more I noticed I felt better, so sometimes I’d check the Fitbit and if I only had like, 2000 steps I would go for a walk because I knew I’d probably feel better.

After returning the Fitbit, Sarah explained this new awareness continued to inform her practices. ‘I know walking more made me feel better so I still try to do it. I kinda know when I haven’t moved much . . . I can feel it in my body, I feel sluggish and heavy’. Other participants also described feeling different – and often better – after getting more exercise using descriptors like ‘calm’, ‘more relaxed’ and ‘having more energy’. As participants tuned into these embodied responses, they were increasingly integrated into decision-making processes around physical activity.

In these accounts, self-tracking with the Fitbit prompted a new sense of tuning into one’s body which in turn yield increased bodily, sensory awareness. Michael described how wearing the Fitbit drew his attention to kinaesthetic and sensory feedback and described how this continued to unfold even after the Fitbit was no longer in use:

When I was wearing [the Fitbit] I started running more and realised I have way more energy when I exercise or even when I just get outside a bit more . . . so now [if] I feel kind of blah I know that I should go for a walk or a run, my body knows now, even without the Fitbit. I kinda miss getting that feedback but now it’s not really about steps, it’s just moving to loosen things up or clear my head, even if it’s a quick walk outside at lunch.

Self-tracking in some form lingered but continued to change and transform in the absence of the device. Our goal is not to discern whether participants did or did not keep up the behaviours of self-tracking after removing the device, rather highlight the ways these practices evolved, transformed and continued to become differently in unpredictable ways. New orientations to sensory forms of information and increased bodily awareness do not disappear with the device, rather they persist and prompt further – and unpredictable – sensory experiences and capacities to ‘tune in’ to bodily knowledges. The act of self-tracking becomes sedimented into accumulated bodily histories, of which habits are an expression (Grosz, 2013).

Accounts our participants offered of being reoriented their attention towards their bodily sensations demonstrate how self-tracking practices can have unpredictable, even inarticulable outcomes that evade dominant frames for assessing and evaluating the efficacy of these devices. The in-built movement targets and quantification of movement that the self-tracking device brought was, for some participants, a source of reductive thinking about their movement and bodily habits. In many cases, participants started to question the arbitrariness of the 10,000-step figure and to reflect on broader meanings of health. Their experiences begin to surface the dissonance between dominant metrics of health and lived experiences of health and shifted how people engaged with and made meaning of their data and movement. In contrast, other participants’ accounts of heightened awareness of how movement made their body feel, even after the device is gone, emphasizes how the habits of self-tracking ‘remain inherently unpredictable’ and open to change (Grosz, 2013: 225).

According to Ravaisson, habit arises because a change to an individual (or to one’s context) gradually becomes a change for the individual. Habit here is a process, a gradual moving from consciousness and effort, to spontaneous ease. In the case of self-tracking, the device is inserted into daily life, changing one’s consciousness and one’s relationship with the world around them. For our participants, this involved new modes of awareness that became integrated into daily practices and ways of being in the world. Even after a week, these new modes of awareness became less noticeable, but nevertheless persisted in what might be understood as a transformative habit. According to Grosz, writing on Ravaisson and Deleuze, habit is a change of behaviour that creates the way for further change. Habit is ‘the possible or potential action even when the change that brought it about ceases’ (2013: 221). This thinking supports our observations that even when the self-tracking device was removed or discontinued, the potential for change persisted.

Discussion

Our results highlight the various ways self-tracking transforms physical gestures and behaviours and daily routines, and how digital data ‘linger’ and continue to be felt unexpectedly in inarticulable ways. This disrupts salient notions that self-tracking only occurs in presence of the device and reveals the myth of discontinuance, unsettling the binary assumptions upon which it is founded. Instead, our participants’ accounts draw our attention to the lingering effects of self-tracking within physical practices and gestures, embodied relationships with space and place, and continuously evolving understandings of health, fitness and their own bodies. This extends findings by Epstein et al. (2016b) and provides a more explicit focus on the embodied ways self-tracking knowledges may linger after devices are abandoned or discontinued. Our focus group method also provides novel insights and more nuanced perspectives than survey methods afford.

The insertion of the digital self-tracking device into daily routines and contexts prompts changes in embodied ways of being in the world and modes of attention. In turn, these changes are integrated into habitual ways of being that in turn further transform thought, gesture and practice in unpredictable, and perhaps even imperceptible ways. These changes prompt new bodily awareness and habitual gestures and practices that Ravaisson considered to be not so much an unconsciousness, but a kind of thinking in action (Rothfield, 2013). Importantly, these transformations do not disappear or recede with the absence of the device. Rather, they persist and continue to evolve, responding to shifting contexts in unfolding futures.

Our findings support earlier research highlighting the importance of the body and its senses in processes of meaning-making as students engaged with, responded to and interpreted their personalized data (Lupton, 2017a; Lupton et al., 2018b; Lupton and Maslen, 2018; Sharon, 2017). However, our study extends this discussion and emphasizes how the body and bodily senses continue to be implicated and transformed in unpredictable ways as a result of self-tracking even after discontinuance. This contributes to and extends discussions of the temporalities of self-tracking (Berg, 2017; Gorm and Shklovski, 2019; Hand and Gorea, 2018) by highlighting the continuous and evolving nature of self-tracking – in multiple, even unrecognizable forms – beyond the device itself. While this scholarship provides nuanced accounts of self-tracking, the device itself is maintained as an indicator of whether self-tracking is or is not occurring. Our findings unsettle the assumption that self-tracking begins and ends with the device. In doing so, fissures appear in the myth of discontinuance, highlighting the need to turn attention beyond the device itself and to pursue new lines of inquiry about self-tracking and its material effects on bodies, lives and social relations.

Importantly, our findings emphasize that self-tracking habits are not predictable, but rather constantly open to change even after tracking devices are disused. They also counter earlier arguments claiming that the information provided by self-tracking data eclipses other forms of bodily knowledge and feedback. While some participants developed these attentive modes, others in our study found that self-tracking created new habits and awareness of their bodies. Furthermore, in both cases, this heightened awareness persisted even after self-tracking had stopped. Through relational encounters between bodies, space and digital data, new forms of knowledge and understandings continue to shape future practices and routines. While we seek to emphasize the capacity of habit to create conditions for change, this change is not assigned a value and we, taking inspiration from Ravaisson, refrain from understanding change as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Rather, we are interested in the capacity of self-tracking to shift and transform conditions of possibility for how people relate to, understand and feel in and about their bodies and health. As digital self-tracking prompts new habitual modes of attention, gestures and practices, how people make meaning of everyday phenomena, such as walking are transformed, sometimes expanded in meaning and sometimes constrained.

The methodological approach presents considerations as the participants were not avid self-trackers prior to the study. In addition, participants were asked to wear the tracking devices for only 7–10 days. It could be argued that this time period is too brief to determine what ‘habits’ may or may not be formed, and that these individuals may not represent the average self-tracker. To the latter point, we acknowledge that these data cannot speak to the formation of long-term habits. However, all self-trackers ‘begin’ to self-track and our participants offer insights into these initial developments of habit, and the experiences after tracking has stopped. In response to the question of duration, we emphasize that it is not the goal of this article to trace the time it takes to form a habit or even to question what does or does constitute a habit. Rather, our participants’ accounts point to the significant limitations of thinking of the dichotomous logic underlying popular self-tracking discourse that suggests the ‘effects’ of self-tracking begin and end with the presence of the device. If we challenge the notion that removing the device marks the end of self-tracking, this also marks a significant shift in thinking away from discontinuance as a problem to be solved.

While new routines were often created to satisfy the arbitrary goal of the device, these changes remained creative. These new practices and routines then gave way to unexpected sensory and affective experiences that continued to evolve and to transform the way participants experienced being in the world, even if imperceptibly. What happens in the absence of the device has not been deeply explored in the literature. Instead, attention often focusses on what is done while wearing the device and people’s reasons for actively choosing to abandon the device either episodically or long term. We suggest that this maintains the assumption that the absence of the device is equated with the absence of behaviour (put another way, the behaviour ceases to ‘matter’ in the absence of the device). The behaviour (or behaviour change) is framed as contingent upon technological presence and intervention. Drawing on a more generous theorisation of habit, our analysis emphasizes the relationality through which new behaviours or practices emerge – new practices are not attributable only to the device itself nor to the discursive context nor to the individual, rather the relations between social, technological and human forces. As Deleuze (1968/1994) argues, these relations prompt ‘new’ ways of being that continue to unfold in unpredictable ways. Importantly, we are not suggesting self-tracking persists in an instrumental, linear and predictable manner – rather which it prompts habitual practices and gestures that continue to have affects long after the device is removed. Perhaps, it is these affects that merit our attention.

Conclusion

Personalized digital data collected through self-tracking continue to shape individuals’ daily practices, routines and health and fitness-related understandings even after discontinued use of digital self-trackers. We have argued that self-tracking is not primarily constituted by the device, or even an interaction between a user and device, but rather a set of relations and habits that have the capacity to develop in many unpredictable directions. The digital data linger and continue to affect how people think about and experience their bodies, shape decisions around physical activity behaviour and routines, and evoke emotional responses even when it is no longer being actively generated. These findings align with and extend research that conceptualizes lively digital data and that is concerned with the unanticipated traces digital data leave and their unpredictable effects. These findings also call into question narrow approaches to evaluating the ‘efficacy’ of technology-based health intervention efforts that see discontinuance as a problem to be solved by calling such interventions and for our understandings of how, when and where digital data intervene. In posing this challenge to the centrality of the device in digital self-tracking research, we hope to push scholarship further towards a conceptualizing of tracking practices as relational – an assemblage of bodies, devices, inclinations and habits, through which capacities shift and change.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a University of Waikato strategic funding postdoctoral fellowship.

ORCID iDs

Marianne Clark

Clare Southerton

Author biographies

Marianne Clark is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Vitalities Lab, UNSW Sydney. Her research examines the intersections between digital technologies, the moving body, and experiences and understandings of health as well as gendered dimensions of health and fitness.

Clare Southerton is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Vitalities Lab, Social Policy Research Centre and Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW Sydney. Her research explores the intersections between social media and digital technologies, and issues related to intimacy, sexuality, privacy, and health.

Matthew Driller is an Associate Professor in Sport and Exercise at La Trobe University in Australia. His research is predominantly focussed on sleep and recovery strategies in athletes.

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