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The Quantified Self: Balancing Privacy and Personal Metrics

Crowds gather outside of government buildings to protest the National Security Agency’s clandestine monitoring of Internet activity. Countless numbers of citizens demand that the government respect the private nature of their digital lives. Yet how many of these protestors use social media to broadcast where they are and what they’re doing? Despite the Snowden leaks and personal protests against the NSA, we willingly allow strangers a glimpse into our daily routines. We share everything from life events to musings in the form of status updates and snapshots. Are we digital hypocrites? Are we feeding the NSA behemoth that we’re trying to eradicate? No, not really. What we are doing is simply living day-to-day in a digital age when technology and privacy have a fickle, tumultuous relationship. Humans are social beings who will continue to communicate and relate to one another, both online and in person. How governments and commercial entities access this information is being worked out in the courts and through personal choices. However, when all is said and done, digital privacy is not a black-and-white issue. It’s a complicated topic dependent on circumstances, once of these being “informed consent.” Social media is only one of the means in which people digitize their personal lives. In 2006, Aaron Patzer founded Mint.com, a personal financial management service. With consent, Mint automatically analyzes personal spending to provide suggestions for saving, as well as spending alerts. It boasts more than 10 million users who allow Mint access to their bank transactions, purchasing habits, and credit card balances. As of 2014, it claims access to over 17 million individual financial accounts.