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Moritz Meister, MSc
title | The Quantified Affect: Microdispositifs of Mood Tracking (MIMOT) |
subtitle | Dissertationsprojekt |
type | research project |
texts | abstract: With an ever-accelerating speed, we are currently witnessing the intrusion of personalized tracking techno¬logies into our daily lives and workplaces. Regarding what it is to be tracked, the trend has gone from the physiological and behavioral (steps, calories, heart rate) to the subjective and ‘psychological’ (stress, resili¬ence, mindfulness). This dissertation project ex-plores an increasingly relevant subtype of self-tracking: Mood-Tracking (MT), i.e., apps to periodically self-protocol one’s affective state, giving users quantitative and visual feedback (points, graphs) but also behavioral recommendations according to their ‘emotional data’. As techno-material means (microdispositifs), MT-apps pertain core psychosocial mechanisms of self- and other-relation as well as affective, bodily, and social knowledge (overall referred to as subjectivation processes).
The main objective of this PhD project is to qualitatively investigate subjectivation processes linked to digital MT: how is the implicit understanding of, the reflecting on, the behaving to-wards and the sharing of one’s affects with others mediated through specifically designed MT applications? To analyze this, first a participa¬tory, reflexive ethnographic interface analysis – the walkthrough method – is deployed to a sample of MT apps for private users. However, not only private users are interested in tracking their affective states. The corporate world also increasingly attempts to monitor employees’ affects, as they are seen to be strongly associat-ed with long-term engagement, teamwork skills, productivity, or workplace perturbances, absence, and fluctuation. The COVID-19 pandemic puts further emphasis on work-related psychosocial challenges and has led to a veritable boom in corporate MT apps, e.g., as part of corporate healthcare programs. To empirically grasp the transformation from private to corporate tracking, MT apps from both contexts are compared systematically.
Empirical findings are accompanied by a core methodological innovation that lies in triangu-lating investigations of the apps themselves with insights on how users (inter)act with them. Therefore, it complements the analysis of MT apps’ interface features with user interviews, group discussions, and media go-alongs in both private and corporate contexts. This user-centered data will be analyzed within the methodological frame of reconstructive praxeology, which allows to understand forms of users’ adaption, reframing or meta-gaming of the apps’ intended use. Private, but especially corporate MT practices are of particular psychological and societal relevance within the wide digital transformation of our personal, social and work-ing world. |
project lead | Meister Moritz |
funding | Gesellschaft für Forschungsförderung Niederösterreich |
funding category | FTI Dissertationen 2022 |
contributors | Slunecko, Thomas: supervisor (graduate thesis) expertizing Bösel, Bernd: cooperation Pritz, Sarah Miriam: cooperation Przyborski, Aglaja: advisor Grenz, Tilo: advisor Bertha von Suttner Privatuniversität St. Pölten: university/college Universität Wien: university/college |
date | date: 2022-10-01 - 2025-09-30 |
status | approved |