Biomonitoring — a path to emergence?
Posted on December 12, 2013 | posted by:I have just received my Polar H7 heart rate monitor (Yes, I did in fact buy it from Amazon one late evening).
I strap it on and connect it wirelessly to my phone. There is instant feedback—Da dunk. Da dunk. Da dunk. I can’t help feeling like I’m in the Matrix. Within seconds it starts mapping my pulse, heart rate variability and other markers of my body’s current condition. Every data point is being stored in the cloud for easy access and analysis at a later time. On the table, my other gadgets await their cue in the daily routine: glasses that block blue light for when I’m working on my computer in the evening, sleeping shades to block out ambient light when I sleep and finally my EEG (Electroencephalography) device for monitoring and mapping my brainwaves during sleep. In my hand, I have the device that brings together all these peripherals and aggregates the data into somewhat comprehensible information—my smartphone.
So now I’m sitting here uploading my vital signs to the cloud so that I can start to map patterns (of causality) of my daily life. My chest strap is is small enough to be worn under my shirt throughout the day, if I want to. An idea is growing inside my head. With the right combination of technology, I could be able to track when and where my wellness is being compromised, do something to change it and then measure if my intervention has had an (positive) impact.
Imagine this. A million people monitoring themselves on relatively cheap but very sophisticated devices and sharing the data with researchers and scientists. Within weeks or months the cumulative amount of data would far succeed that of regular short-term studies. Distributing the point of data collection would have many benefits. It would increase study researcher’s access to study participants as location would no longer be an issue. Participants would not have to go to a clinic or lab as monitoring would happen during daily routines. Lastly, being able to study such numbers of people would drive prices down for both collection of data and for equipment.
More self-biomonitoring could unleash a profound change in citizen behaviour as people would be able to get direct feedback on their actions. But on a larger scale, distribution of data collection and tracking of biomarkers or using distributed data for identifying patterns in the public (health) could allow for advancements in health knowledge and technology not seen in decades. As I have written in earlier posts, we are all as different on the inside as we are on the outside, so by taking the perspective of Steven Johnson we could let people diverge onto their own paths of lifestyle but have them gather valuable data that could benefit the general public. Of course, there are concerns with regards to privacy and misuse of information as with any concept involving people and data. However, I find it difficult to see the real dangers of sharing patterns of vital signs and even biomarkers (link) linked to daily routines and behavior. Even if such data was shared within a community and not to a single point (ex. a researcher or research institute).
In some way, what I have proposed here is what the Quantified Self movement (link) is doing, but with one vital exception: a connection to big research institutes, whose findings actually affect the public.
And what if the systems around us—our houses, offices, cars, even computers and refridgerators—could sense us and change to improve our wellbeing. Could biomonitoring initiate and speed up the process of optimizing the manmade objects that perhaps affects us in a far greater way than many of us realize?