AI Solutionism and Digital Self-Tracking with Wearables

TL;DR

This paper examines how AI-driven automation in self-tracking wearables impacts user agency and reflection, highlighting the need to balance automation benefits with user empowerment.

Contribution

It offers a critical perspective on automation in self-tracking, based on experiences with the Oura Ring, and discusses potential strategies to address associated challenges.

Findings

Automation reduces user agency in self-tracking.

Users may experience decreased reflection on health data.

Potential remedies to enhance user control are discussed.

Abstract

Self-tracking technologies and wearables automate the process of data collection and insight generation with the support of artificial intelligence systems, with many emerging studies exploring ways to evolve these features further through large-language models (LLMs). This is done with the intent to reduce capture burden and the cognitive stress of health-based decision making, but studies neglect to consider how automation has stymied the agency and independent reflection of users of self-tracking interventions. In this position paper, we explore the consequences of automation in self-tracking by relating it to our experiences with investigating the Oura Ring, a sleep wearable, and navigate potential remedies.