Personal Informatics as an Information Ecology: Activity Trackers and Relational Affordances

Abstract

With the proliferation of activity-tracking devices and other smart tools, more users leverage these personal informatics technologies to track their physical and fitness-related activities. The research on the benefits (and limitations) of these devices tends to focus on the use of a single tool, leaving out the interactions among multiple technologies, and how these interactions influence the way users perceive their affordances. Building from an ecological perspective, I extend this research by providing insight into the competitive and complementary relationships among activity tracking devices and other fitness-related and personal informatics technologies within the device ecology of technologies around the user. The affordances of these devices are therefore not enacted in isolation but are relational to understanding of other technological options and differing personal preferences and goals of the user.