As predictions about the impact of AI on our futures take over the news, it helps to take a step back and consider previous hype cycles which similarly promised to revolutionize how we live and work.

One instructive case is the evolution of the self-tracking market which I examine in my recent book Ethnography of an Interface: Self-Tracking, the Quantified Self, and the Work of Digital Connections.

This work shows that tools designed to measure our steps, sleep, or focus were never just about health or curiosity. They emerged in response to broader pressures to remain adaptable in a precarious labor market. A key lens for understanding this dynamic is the Quantified Self, which I approach less as a quirky subculture of tech enthusiasts and more as a social and technological contact zone where business logics and personal aspirations collide.

By tracking how QS became both an industry and a professional support group where individuals navigated anxieties about productivity, relevance, and connection, I examine how evolving notions of personal data, the contradictions of a business sphere that both celebrates and undermines user-centric design, and a broader shift toward entrepreneurial selfhood where performative passion has become both a survival strategy and a marketable asset, animated the self-tracking economy.

Today, the tech sector has moved beyond wearables and self-tracking devices, but the underlying logic remains: passion is a credential, work is identity, and community, virtual or not, is both a lifeline and a form of unpaid labor.

In this context, dreams of frictionless, optimized, and connected futures continue to reflect less a sense of technical inevitability than the enduring pressures of life and labor in a fraught and fractured digital economy.

Ethnography of an Interface: Self-Tracking, the Quantified Self, and the Work of Digital Connections, Cambridge University Press, 2025.