Quantified-Self
Footsteps, sweat, caffeine, memories, stress, even sex and dating habits - it can all be calculated and scored like a baseball batting average. And if there isn't already an app or a device for tracking it, one will probably appear in the next few years.
Over the last weekend of May, in the upstairs of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, 400 "Quantified-Selfers" from around the globe have gathered to show off their Excel sheets, databases and gadgets.
-- April Dembosky, FT's San Francisco correspondent
Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3ccb11a0-923b-11e0-9e00-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1uQEAdCOg
many of the attendees of the Quantified Self conference liken themselves to the Homebrew Computer Club of the 1970s and '80s, the Silicon Valley gathering of technical hobbyists - including Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak - who swore personal computers would one day grace every home. Quantified-selfers who are inventing personal tracking gadgets in their basements "will have the same scope of impact"
Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3ccb11a0-923b-11e0-9e00-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1uQIl7x3a
Back at the Quantified Self Conference in Silicon Valley, attendees break into smaller groups to explore the finer points of hacking sleep, cognition and ageing. A concentration of hipsters heads to the session on attention-span tracking. About 50 participants sit in a circle, one-third with laptops propped open on their thighs. Moderating is Matthew Trentacoste, a 29-year-old PhD student in computer science at the University of British Columbia and an organiser of the Vancouver Quantified Self group, one of two dozen groups around the globe that meet informally throughout the year. His long, curly hair is piled at the back of his head and tied with a knitted scarf.
"I've been diagnosed with ADHD," he says, referring to the increasingly common designation of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. "As someone who's easily distracted, I'm interested in figuring out strategies to reduce these distractions."
Trentacoste describes a tool he's developing to help him track how he spends his time online, down to the millisecond. It measures how long he spends on e-mail versus web browsing, how much time he spends in each web window and how often he switches his focus. The goal, among those who use or are building similar tools, is to reduce distractions, increase productivity and achieve "flow", the optimum state of creativity and focus.
A discussion ensues on techniques for achieving flow, and a generational divide appears.
The younger people in the room talk about experimenting with Adderall, a common drug prescribed to people with ADHD that helps focus the mind. Older participants enquire whether meditating before bed has an effect on concentration the next day. The contrasts in method between the age groups are stark, as are the motivations for body hacking in general, says Dave Asprey.
"The people interested in this are under 30 and over 45," he says, gesturing around the cafeteria at the conference. The people under 30 are the next Tim Ferrisses, the over-achieving entrepreneurs who are out to conquer Silicon Valley.
"The people over 45 are just tired of being fat and tired, and they see the kids under 30 and they know they're going to lose their jobs to them," he says. "They know they like to work 'em hard and burn 'em out young in Silicon Valley."