Data selves (Book review)

Abstract

I have written in a journal since I was in my late teens, at someone else’s suggestion. I have filled hundreds, or maybe thousands of pages with personal ‘data’ – thoughts, feelings, lists of food, spending, goals, hopes, dreams, exercise, and more. I have thrown them all away, not wanting to keep this personal data from the past, yet Lupton asks us to develop a ‘new ethics of affinity, care and compassion towards them’ [data] (p. 125), and I am hit by a wave of compassion for my ‘data selves’.