The Data
Ben Lipkowitz
Five years ago  Ben Lipkowitz  who is now 28   was living with some friends in Bloomington  Ind.  and  he  found  himself  wondering how much time  he  spent doing one of  his  roommates’ dishes. Lipkowitz had a handheld electronic datebook that  he  purchased on a trip to Tokyo   and on May 11  2005  at 2:20 p.m.   he  started using it to keep a record of  his  actions. Instead of entering  his  future appointments   he  entered  his  past activities  creating a remarkably complete account of  his  life. In one sense this was just a normal personal journal  albeit in a digital format and unusually detailed. But the format and detail made all the difference.  Lipkowitz  eventually transferred the data to  his  computer  and now  using a few keyboard commands   he  can call up  his  history.  He  knows how much  he  has eaten and how much  he  has spent.  He  knows what books  he  has read and what objects  he  has purchased. And of course   he  knows the answer to  his  original question. “I was thinking I was spending an hour a day cleaning up after this person ” Lipkowitz says.  He  shrugs. “It turned out it was more like 20 minutes.”
These men all know that their behavior is abnormal. They are outliers. Geeks. But why does what they are doing seem so strange? In other contexts  it is normal to seek data. A fetish for numbers is the defining trait of the modern manager. Corporate executives facing down hostile shareholders load their pockets full of numbers. So do politicians on the hustings  doctors counseling patients and fans abusing their local sports franchise on talk radio. Charles Dickens was already making fun of this obsession in 1854  with his sketch of the fact-mad schoolmaster Gradgrind  who blasted his students with memorized trivia. But Dickens’s great caricature only proved the durability of the type. For another century and a half   it  got worse.
Or  by another standard  you could say  it  got better. We tolerate the pathologies of quantification — a dry  abstract  mechanical type of knowledge — because the results are so powerful. Numbering things allows tests  comparisons  experiments. Numbers make problems less resonant emotionally but more tractable intellectually. In science  in business and in the more reasonable sectors of government  numbers have won fair and square.
I recently received an e-mail message from a 26-year-old filmmaker named Toli Galanis  who keeps track of about 50 different streams of personal data  including activities  health  films watched and books read  the friends he talks with and the topics they discuss. While Galanis acknowledged that he gets pleasure from gathering data and organizing  it  intelligently   it  was a different aspect of his report that caught my attention. “I know that immediately after watching a bad movie I am more apt to be negative about my career prospects as a filmmaker ” he wrote  explaining that tracking has made him better able to detect the influence of seemingly trivial circumstances on his mood and decisions.
The idea that our mental life is affected by hidden causes is a mainstay of psychology. Facility in managing the flow of thought and emotion is a sign of happiness and good adjustment. But how is  it  done? Nearly every therapeutic prescription involves an invitation to notice  to pay attention. Once we have a notion in our sights  we can attack  it  with an arsenal of tools: cognitive  psychoanalytic  even spiritual. But none of these will tell us if we’ve missed something. You may simply have failed to notice a debilitating habit  a negative correlation  a bad influence.
Five years ago  [TGT]was living with some friends in Bloomington  Ind.  and  [TGT]  found  [TGT]  wondering how much time  [TGT]  spent doing one of  [TGT]  roommates’ dishes. [TGT] had a handheld electronic datebook that  [TGT]  purchased on a trip to Tokyo   and on May 11  2005  at 2:20 p.m.   [TGT]  started using it to keep a record of  [TGT]  actions. Instead of entering  [TGT]  future appointments   [TGT]  entered  [TGT]  past activities  creating a remarkably complete account of  [TGT]  life. In one sense this was just a normal personal journal  albeit in a digital format and unusually detailed. But the format and detail made all the difference.  [TGT]eventually transferred the data to  [TGT]  computer  and now  using a few keyboard commands   [TGT]  can call up  [TGT]  history.  [TGT]  knows how much  [TGT]  has eaten and how much  [TGT]  has spent.  [TGT]  knows what books  [TGT]  has read and what objects  [TGT]  has purchased. And of course   [TGT]  knows the answer to  [TGT]  original question. “I was thinking I was spending an hour a day cleaning up after this person ” [TGT] says.  [TGT]  shrugs. “It turned out it was more like 20 minutes.”
These men all know that their behavior is abnormal. They are outliers. Geeks. But why does what they are doing seem so strange? In other contexts  it is normal to seek data. A fetish for numbers is the defining trait of the modern manager. Corporate executives facing down hostile shareholders load their pockets full of numbers. So do politicians on the hustings  doctors counseling patients and fans abusing their local sports franchise on talk radio. Charles Dickens was already making fun of this obsession in 1854  with his sketch of the fact-mad schoolmaster Gradgrind  who blasted his students with memorized trivia. But Dickens’s great caricature only proved the durability of the type. For another century and a half   [TGT]  got worse.
Or  by another standard  you could say  [TGT]  got better. We tolerate the pathologies of quantification — a dry  abstract  mechanical type of knowledge — because the results are so powerful. Numbering things allows tests  comparisons  experiments. Numbers make problems less resonant emotionally but more tractable intellectually. In science  in business and in the more reasonable sectors of government  numbers have won fair and square.
I recently received an e-mail message from a 26-year-old filmmaker named Toli Galanis  who keeps track of about 50 different streams of personal data  including activities  health  films watched and books read  the friends he talks with and the topics they discuss. While Galanis acknowledged that he gets pleasure from gathering data and organizing  [TGT]  intelligently   [TGT]  was a different aspect of his report that caught my attention. “I know that immediately after watching a bad movie I am more apt to be negative about my career prospects as a filmmaker ” he wrote  explaining that tracking has made him better able to detect the influence of seemingly trivial circumstances on his mood and decisions.
The idea that our mental life is affected by hidden causes is a mainstay of psychology. Facility in managing the flow of thought and emotion is a sign of happiness and good adjustment. But how is  it  done? Nearly every therapeutic prescription involves an invitation to notice  to pay attention. Once we have a notion in our sights  we can attack  it  with an arsenal of tools: cognitive  psychoanalytic  even spiritual. But none of these will tell us if we’ve missed something. You may simply have failed to notice a debilitating habit  a negative correlation  a bad influence.