125: The quantified self

January 11, 2015

People have been keeping track of their moods, sleeping, dietary habits and more for hundreds of years — Benjamin Franklin famously recorded instances of his virtues and vices. But only in the last decade has the rise of smartphones and fast computing created the new “Quantified Self” movement in which some people are trying to mine their own data for insights about how to be happier and more effective. In this episode, Massimo and Julia discuss self tracking — what you can learn from it, and what its pitfalls might be.