Data, Data Everywhere: The power-surge of lifestyle intel

Karen Canty says advances in technology will soon mean we’ll be collecting data about each and every movement, transaction and household appliance (and the rest). There will be no excuse for not living lives of organised moderation every hour of every day…

Advances in technology at a mobile and an in-home level are giving rise to a number of “self-tracking” devices that translate the data surrounding us into understandable chunks of information. Will we soon be collecting data about each and every movement, transaction and household appliance? And what are the implications?

A life less ordinary

Picture the scene, set in a living room near you, in the late ’10s. Relaxing on the sofa with her smartphone after a long day at work, Leona catches up on messages from friends, flicks through photos of last weekend’s birthday party and casually reviews the day’s events with the help of a handy new app that passively collects hard data about her (nearly) every move. Today, it informs her, she has walked 3.8 kilometres; made 5 phone calls lasting an average of 3 minutes each; eaten approximately 75g of fat (a little over her RDA); has come into close contact with 8 people on her mobile social network; spent £7 on lunch, another £8 on transport and £2 on a mid-morning cappuccino; and caught the 18:03 train home (which was delayed by 4.5 minutes). Another app has her checking just how much energy her flat has churned through since leaving this morning; 9kwh units so far, costing approximately £2.45 a unit.

No, not a data analyst’s daydream, but a reality that future techno-literate populations could increasingly recognise as their own; a world in which data about each movement, transaction and household appliance is faithfully recorded by intelligent app – personal ‘black boxes’ – that can provide tailored, didactic information and a tech-inspired historical diary of people met, places visited and experiences collected.  Advances in technology at a mobile and an in-home level have already given rise to a number of “self-tracking” devices that translate the data surrounding us into understandable chunks of information.  And looking at the nVision chart below, it is clear that interest in such technologies is accelerating – a full 40% say they would be interested in a device or app that could help them track their calorie consumption; while 45% can see the value of brand tracking aids, that send personalised offers and discounts.

We consider here some early developments in the area and are struck by the scope of innovation; this is a trend, we anticipate, with potentially serious implications for the majority of consumer-facing sectors.  An area one might think  particularly well suited to sophisticated surveillance is personal health and fitness (see above chart).  Personalised monitoring systems in this sector (a number of which appear on smartphone handsets) presumably give health-conscious citizens a sense of personal control in the daily battle against obesity and other lifestyle diseases, the consequences of sedentary living, smoking habits, addictions of all kinds and the physical effects of old age… as well as providing the reassuring presence of an (albeit digital) sparring-partner forever on hand with tips, encouragement and an invitation to improve upon your PB.

Consumers can track any number of vital signs and personal physical performances via a flurry of new apps.  For example, iBP invites users to monitor blood-pressure and pulse rates over time, with the option of sending cumulative, long-term data to the doctor for further analysis. Glucose Buddy is an all-round health record for diabetes sufferers; blood-glucose levels, food intake and exercise regimes are all logged via a touchscreen interface and presented in colourful graphical displays for the user to analyse.  Pitched at those keen to lose weight, Meal Calc is one of several apps designed to log the number of calories consumed each day, with subtle nudges to remain within recommended guidelines.

Cyclists and runners with an iPhone can download RunKeeper, an app that uses the smartphone’s built-in GPS chip to track the user’s speed and distance travelled, with the option of ‘broadcasting your success to the world’ via social networking sites. In a novel example of brand twinning, Apple and Nike offer runners the Nike+iPod system that gives real-time feedback on their workout as well as an overview of ‘run histories’. Here too, users can post progress to community web pages, compare distances travelled with others and collect added motivation to run further next time. According to the Nike+ website at the beginning of the new decade, the global running community had collectively run over 300m kilometres.

Taking control of one’s health in the context of the Big Society

Recognising the power of self-tracking devices – and by extension, beginning to pass the responsibility for personal health on to consumers – the NHS has introduced a free iPhone app, the NHS Drinks Tracker, that calculates the units of alcohol consumed over ‘weeks and months’ alongside ‘personalised feedback on your drinking’. F aced with the daunting long-term costs associated with treating lifestyle diseases, will public health bodies across Europe soon be encouraging populations intent on over-eating/ drinking/smoking to record unhealthy behaviours in the hope that – faced with an accurate log of post-work piña coladas and late night takeaways – over-indulgers will be shamed into submission?  Certainly, looking at examples like the stat below, we can anticipate a de-infantilisation of the regulatory environment – a sense that you should sort yourself out, consume wisely, live smart.

Looking to corporate culture, in the US, Virgin’s HealthMiles incentive scheme is designed to help employers motivate workers to lead healthier lifestyles. Employees wear ‘GoZone’ pedometers and self-monitor weight and blood pressure at ‘HealthZone Stations’, with improvements tied to cash payments (‘HealthCash’) and other rewards – a small outlay, Virgin maintains, given the potential productivity gains to be made from a healthier workforce.

Philips too has introduced a self-tracking health and fitness programme aimed at employers and individuals in the US. DirectLife users wear a device that passively records movements over the course of the day, with the option of sharing accumulated data with professional coaches over the internet who in turn provide ongoing encouragement and activity suggestions. Will the data-gathering app/ device/ widget become an unlikely hero in the battle against the bad?

And a useful, cost-saving tool for employers to reduce absenteeism relating to claims of ill-health?

Home is where the data is

The relative health of one’s home can also be measured. Smart energy meters, for example, give consumers real-time, visual feedback on household energy usage, including an estimation of the cost of current consumption and even advice on how (and when) to consume energy more efficiently, be that turning off appliances rarely used or switching usage to off-peak periods. With the help of online services such as Google’s PowerMeter and Microsoft Hohm, consumers will be able to remotely track household energy usage via the internet.  An important part of its plan to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and build ‘smart grids’, the European Union hopes that up to 80% of European households will have smart meters installed by 2020 – moves that align well, we suggest, with consumer interest in Professional Budgeting and the War on Waste, trends we feel will continue to characterise the new decade as utility bills rise and personal incomes lag.
And in fact, a recent Future Foundation survey shows that consumers say next generation smart meters would have as profound an impact on their energy usage as a 100% increase in price.

The developments described here invite us to revisit the theme of the Surveillance Society.  In some quarters we can surely expect a strengthening resolve against attempts to monitor and observe, with arguments over cyber theft, identity abuse and this-is-the-next-step-on-the-road-to-Big-Brother brought to the fore. But is it not true that the majority of consumers will continue to rate the benefits and sheer usefulness of data-sharing higher than the potential risks?

Those tracking apps that offer users a unique opportunity to add to the stock of personal success will, we suspect, have a ready and willing audience. More, large swathes of Europeans are already well experienced in the sharing of gigabytes worth of personal data with friends and companies via the socially networked web; to share information on emotional states, evening plans and even our realtime locations (with friends we particularly trust) has so quickly become commonplace. The collected health and home-related examples we consider here potentially represent the beginning of what could become a key consumer habit of the ’10s decade, with implications and applications for so many consumer-facing sectors. Will there soon be a meter that calculates a household’s council tax bill based on the lifestyles of those that inhabit it? An app that records data on driving styles/shopping habits/daily commuting routes? For a consumer society programmed towards Mobile Living, the possibilities, as they say, are endless.

We would identify two strains of long-term consequence here. Firstly, yes, assumption is progressively eliminated from lifestyle choice: it will not be a question of guessing what/when is good/bad for us across the width of our personal interests. It will be a reality of knowing. The whole hard-core trend of consumer empowerment is thus extended, amplified one might say: we will depend on fewer external authorities to help us locate the truth (about anything).

Secondly, at the very same time, so much more “intel” about our choices will be out in the open – choices relating to how much we cost the state (in, say, healthcare charges), how much carbon actually appears on our personal eco-tab, how well we are feeding our kids, how efficiently we are recycling our waste, how much time we actually spend working when “working at home”, how clean we are keeping our homes… Inevitably, with so much information gathered and collated, there will be fewer places to hide our excesses and our indifferences.

Soon, saying that you do not know how much electricity your home consumes will be like saying you do not know how many units of alcohol you drink each week. It may therefore become even easier for eco-ethical norms to enforce themselves through social pressure. And all kinds of self deception or denial become, along the way, harder to sustain. Just as we become more powerful by virtue of the Data, Data Everywhere trend, so we become more public too.

Soon, there will be no excuse for not living lives of organised moderation every hour of every day.

For more, contact Karen Canty at the Future Foundation on 020 3008 5772/ karenc@futurefoundation.net.