Thursday, November 28, 2013

How might we describe and make sense of an individual’s life? Is it best understood with reference to their accomplishments, family life, voluntary work and career—elements that might be narrated in a eulogy at their funeral? Or would this account miss the texture of their daily experience, the habits and routines that form the constant backdrop to these events? We now have substantial data resources from longitudinal studies that have tracked large samples of individuals over many decades. We also have myriad and increasing opportunities for tracking and recording our own daily lives and the lives of others. How might we extract and combine this information to understand, and potentially improve, individual lives?

We first briefly explores the ways in which individuals have figured within longitudinal research in the social sciences and highlights an emerging set of methods focused on reconstructing individual cases within quantitative longitudinal research. The second is partly inspired by recent literature that emphasises the importance of attending to the mundane, the routine and the everyday (Highmore 2004, 2011; Pink 2012; Back 2015; Neal and Murji 2015). Specifically, I raise questions about the implications of the digital revolution (and in particular the self-tracking movement or ‘personal informatics’), for future research practices within longitudinal studies. It is now possible for detailed information to be collected in real time on individuals’ habits, behaviours and vital signs (Lupton 2016; Neff and Nafus 2016). This potentially provides researchers, and individuals themselves, with material that can be used to develop a different type of understanding of a life—one that focuses more on routine, lived experience and the practices and habits of daily life.