A post discussing the nuances behind designing experiments that track mood, including insights into the debate as to whether negative and positive emotions should be measured as polar opposite or considered states that can be experienced at the same time.
Beau Gunderson lives inside his browser and struggles with distractions, so he wrote a Chrome extension to quantify his browser usage. He learned that he visits about 500 websites a day, sometimes has up to 100 tabs open, and occasionally declares “tab bankruptcy.” Check out Beau’s revealing story in the video below. (Filmed by the San Francisco…
Crystal Goh looks at brains every day, as part of her work in a brain and sleep imaging lab in Berkeley. She wanted to know how her brain was different from other brains, in a quantitative way. In the video below, Crystal explains voxel-based morphometry, normalization and standard deviation calculations, and the scary, revealing things…
Brooks Kincaid has been tracking his blood glucose continuously for the past two years, after 16 years of finger pricking and guessing. In this video, Brooks openly shares what he has learned about the benefits and challenges of continuous blood glucose monitoring and explains his preferred data view, the modal day snapshot.
Twelve years ago, Buster Benson started tracking how different web links affected his mood (the Morale-O-Meter!), and he was surprised to find that other people were interested in his data. In this inspiring video, Buster shares some snapshots of what he has tracked over the past several years, including his famous 8:36 pm project and how…
At the last San Francisco QS meetup group event, Justin Fu shared the story of how he lost 40 pounds in 15 weeks using the Fitbit, how tracking affected his relationships, and how he developed a slew of new habits. Check out his inspiring story in the video below. Justin Fu – 15 Weeks of Self Tracking…
At the inaugural show&tell of the San Francisco QS meetup group, Kevin Kelly gave a perspective-broadening talk on where Quantified Self came from and where it’s going. Check it out below! Kevin Kelly – Quantified Self Co-Founder from Gary Wolf on Vimeo.
Nick Winter has done some dedicated testing of the effect of different interventions on his cognitive function. He discovered that butter had an unexpected impact on his mental performance, while things like cutting out gluten had no effect. In the video below, Nick gives an entertaining and informative talk about his experimental design and what he…
Hugo Campos lives with arrhythmia, and is a self-professed data nudist. He decided to do an experiment last December to improve his health and his heart – going vegan and taking beautiful pictures of every single meal he ate to post to a public Flickr set. In the video below, Hugo gives an animated talk about…
Simon Frid moved to California last year because his data told him he was smarter here than in New York. Well, not really. But this funny story begins his journey of figuring out how to track one of the simplest things that we don’t generally know about ourselves: our own posture. Simon designed a wearable…
Alex Grey is developing a better kind of muscle sensor, to help people see their muscle activity patterns and change behaviors like typing or running to be more effective and less painful. The sensors are wireless, stick to your skin, and can measure different kinds of muscle activity including arm/leg (EMG) and heart muscles (ECG)….
Thomas Pickard has had Restless Legs Syndrome for the past thirty years, but was only diagnosed ten years ago. Since his diagnosis, he has experimented with drug dosage, had his genome partially sequenced, and started a RLS/Niacin study on Genomera. In the video below, Thomas talks about what he learned about his sleep, blood and…
Rob Portil is sixty-six years old and has been overweight twice in his life. He’s been using FitBit for the past four months, and has reached his target weight. In the video below, he describes how he experiences the daily tracking, how his sweetheart experiences it differently, which Four Hour Body workouts he does, and…
Thomas Chistiansen of Mymee spent three years using a QS approach to reduce his allergies. He recorded his symptoms, intake of food, water, and supplements, as well as sleep, urination, and elimination. Through his careful observations, Thomas has been able to get rid of the eczema on his hands and can now manage through allergy…
On September 11, Lindsay Meyer was hiking with a group of friends when she suddenly lost all hearing in one ear. In the video below, she compares her experience with the California medical system to her own independent investigation through Google searches and apps. Lindsay draws a startling conclusion about the relative time and cost…
John Sumser had a 7-year period of disasters after he quit smoking. He faced cancer twice, diabetes, asthma, divorce, family death, and more. Throughout this period, he was measuring himself. As he went back through his data, he found one central thing underlying all of his problems – stress. John tells his colorful story and…
Joe Betts-LaCroix reports below on his recent experiment with a 28-hour day. He describes in engaging detail how he set up a tent in a crawlspace under his house, how his family reacted to the experiment, and what he learned from it. Definitely worth watching if you’re doing any sleep experiments! (Filmed at the 20th Bay Area…
Ernesto Ramirez strikes again! His recent talk at QS San Diego called Quantified Self on a Budget is one of our most viewed videos. We were lucky enough to have Ernesto come up to San Francisco to share his thoughts on how self-tracking can enhance your memories and help you reflect on your life. He…
Bryan Bishop tracks every social interaction he has with anyone, in person, on the phone, and online – and he’s been doing this since 2005. He discovered that he talks 60% of the time, and mostly interacts with people online. Also, the more people he talks to, the more lines of code he writes! Bryan…
Nancy Dougherty made her own set of “mindfulness pills” – placebos labeled Focus, Willpower/Energy, Calm, and Happy. The pills were embedded with sensors that transmitted signals to her phone, recording each time she took the different pills, as well as her heart rate, activity rate, and sleep. Nancy works at Proteus Biomedical, in case you’re…
