Personal Informatics and a Sense of Place

Hollinshead, Jan and Harper, R.H.R. and Rouncefield, Mark (2024) Personal Informatics and a Sense of Place. In: Proceedings of the 36th Australian Computer-Interaction Conference (OzCHI’24) :. ACM, Brisbane.

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Abstract

This paper reports a qualitative, small-scale study into a sense of place that emerges in the use of current personal informatics sports tools. Prior research has identified how data are folded into the felt life and how this has evolved into one where some commentators have suggested that people ‘dwell in data’. The research asks whether this is still the case, or whether a sense of place is beginning to emerge in a slightly altered form of the felt life. The research shows that it is appearing and is central to many data centric embodied practices. But it also shows that what place means is shaped by the purposes ‘users’ have, whether it is place as a visual field, an enveloping sensory environment, or a way point in a life-long voyage. The implications this has for personal informatics in the future are remarked upon.