To what extent can self-tracking devices and apps be considered as tools of self-care?

Btihaj Ajana questions whether self-tracking is a way of reclaiming autonomy and control over one’s health, or merely a form of outsourcing decision-making to technology itself.

Btihaj Ajana is Professor of Ethics and Digital Culture at the department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London. Her academic research is interdisciplinary in nature and focuses on the ethical, political and ontological aspects of digital developments and their intersection with everyday cultures.

She is the author of Governing through Biometrics: The Biopolitics of Identity (2013) and editor of Self-Tracking: Empirical and Philosophical Investigations (2018); Metric Culture: Ontologies of Self-Tracking Practices (2018); and The Quantification of Bodies in Health: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (2021). Ajana also uses the medium of film as a way of exploring social issues. Her most recent films include Quantified Life (2017); Surveillance Culture (2017); Fem's Way (2020); and Borderscapes (2022).

This is the fifth and final event in a series of lunchtime talks led by King’s researchers in the AI Forum - a dedicated space in Science Gallery London for participation and discussion exploring how AI is made and used - part of Science Gallery London's current season AI: Who’s Looking After Me? in collaboration with FutureEverything.