Chapter 20 Exercises

Exercise 20.1 — Your Own Quantified Self Audit (Individual)

Estimated time: 30–40 minutes

Instructions:

Take stock of your own self-tracking practices.

a. List every app, device, or practice through which you currently track data about yourself. Include: fitness apps, sleep trackers, step counters, calorie or food logging, mood journals, meditation apps, screen time tracking, financial tracking, running or cycling apps, any employer or school wellness tracking, and any passive tracking (apps that log your behavior without you actively logging).

b. For each item on your list: - Who holds the data? (Your device? The app company's cloud? Your employer?) - Did you read the privacy policy before using it? - Is the data shared with third parties? (Check the privacy policy if you don't know.) - How long is the data retained? - Have you ever used the data to make a decision or change a behavior?

c. Rate each item on a scale from 1 (clearly beneficial, low surveillance risk) to 5 (questionable benefit, high surveillance risk).

d. Write a 300-word reflection: - Does this audit change your view of any of your tracking practices? - Is there anything on the list you would like to stop? What would stopping require? - Is there anything you would like to start tracking? After what you've read in this chapter, what would you consider before starting?

Exercise 20.2 — Norms Analysis: What Does Your Tracker Measure? (Individual)

Estimated time: 30–40 minutes

Instructions:

Select one self-tracking practice or metric — your own, or one from the chapter (10,000 steps, 8 hours sleep, productivity tracking, a mood journal, a calorie counter).

Apply Foucault's "technologies of the self" analysis to identify the social norms this metric encodes.

a. What does the metric measure? Be precise. (Steps walked, not "fitness." Calories consumed, not "diet quality.")

b. What does the metric implicitly define as "good" performance? (10,000 steps as the daily goal — what does this assume about who should be walking 10,000 steps and under what conditions?)

c. Who established this norm and why? (Research where the specific target number came from, if applicable. The 10,000 steps origin story is a useful example.)

d. What structural conditions does this norm ignore? (Who has time to walk 10,000 steps? Who has safe places to walk? Whose physical conditions make this number appropriate or inappropriate?)

e. Who benefits from the normalization of this metric? (Device manufacturers? Employers? Insurers? Public health systems?)

f. Who might be disadvantaged by the normalization of this metric? (People who cannot meet the norm? People whose health conditions are not captured by the metric? People who bear costs for failing to meet the norm?)

Write a 400-word analysis integrating your answers to a–f.

Exercise 20.3 — Wellness Program Policy Analysis (Individual or Pairs)

Estimated time: 60–75 minutes

Instructions:

Research your employer's, university's, or a publicly documented employer's wellness program. (If you do not have access to a real wellness program, use one of the publicly documented programs from companies like United Airlines, Walmart, or a major healthcare employer, which have been covered in news reporting.)

a. Describe the program. What behaviors does it track? What devices does it use? What data does it collect?

b. Identify the incentive structure. What are the financial incentives for participation? What are the financial consequences of non-participation? How does the incentive value compare to typical employee wages at this employer?

c. Review the privacy disclosures. What does the program's privacy disclosure (or the wellness vendor's privacy policy) say about: data retention, data sharing with the employer, data sharing with third parties, employee rights to access or delete data?

d. Apply the "voluntary" analysis. Based on the incentive structure and the context (types of workers, wage levels, industry), how "voluntary" is participation in this program in practice?

e. Evaluate the power dynamics. Does the employer receive individual-level health data, aggregate data, or both? What could an employer do with individual-level health data that would disadvantage employees? Are there protections against such uses?

Write a 600-word critical analysis.

Exercise 20.4 — Data Labor Valuation (Small Group)

Estimated time: 40–50 minutes Group size: 3–5 students

The concept: The chapter argues that self-trackers are "data laborers" who produce commercial value without compensation proportionate to that value.

Instructions:

Step 1: As a group, select one consumer wearable or self-tracking platform (Fitbit/Google, Apple Watch, Strava, MyFitnessPal).

Step 2: Research the company's revenue model. How does the company make money? (Device sales, subscription services, data sales, advertising?) Estimate, based on publicly available financial information, what proportion of revenue comes from data-related activities vs. direct user payments.

Step 3: Estimate the commercial value of a single user's data. Use what you know about: - Location data broker prices (from Chapter 18 research) - Advertising revenue per user at data-driven companies - The specific sensitivity and commercial value of health data compared to general behavioral data

Step 4: Compare your estimated per-user data value to the cost of the service the user receives.

Step 5: Discuss: Is this exchange fair? What would "fair compensation" look like? Consider: - Data dividends (companies pay users for their data) - Data ownership models (users own their data and license it) - Cooperative models (user-owned data cooperatives) - Regulatory models (mandatory data minimization that reduces commercial extraction)

Present your analysis to the class in a 5-minute presentation.

Exercise 20.5 — The Wellness Program Debate (Class Debate)

Estimated time: 50 minutes (20 preparation, 30 debate)

The claim: Employer wellness programs with financial incentives are a reasonable and beneficial approach to improving employee health and reducing healthcare costs.

Setup: - Team A: Argue FOR the claim - Team B: Argue AGAINST the claim - Observers: Evaluate the quality of arguments and note unresolved tensions

Team A preparation notes: - Employers have legitimate interests in employee health (productivity, insurance costs) - Financial incentives are used throughout the economy to align individual and collective interests - Participation in wellness programs has been associated with positive health outcomes in some studies - Employees can choose employers based on their benefit packages; wellness programs are part of the package

Team B preparation notes: - The "voluntary" character of programs with significant financial incentives is questionable, especially for lower-wage workers - Health data is highly sensitive; its transfer to employers (even in aggregate) creates risks - The individual responsibility frame of wellness programs ignores structural health determinants - Healthier employees (who generate more positive wellness data) may receive de facto advantages over chronically ill employees

Debate structure: - Opening statements: 4 minutes each - Rebuttal: 3 minutes each - Audience questions: 10 minutes - Closing: 2 minutes each

Post-debate writing: Each student writes a 150-word reflection. Not "who won" but: What is the strongest unresolved tension in this debate? What additional information would help resolve it?