Nearly ten years ago Brooklyn-based designer Nicholas Felton created his first personal annual report. Felton documented the data of his own past year using text and infographics to document modes of travel taken, cities and countries visited, music listened to, number of images recorded and the various other activities he engaged in across the preceding twelve months. The so-called Quantified Self (QS) movement was born.

Page from @feltron’s 2012 Personal Annual Report

Since then, the concept of collecting ever increasing amounts of personal data has evolved into an industry unto itself, one which cleverly plays to our never-ending desire to know more about our personal uniqueness. Feeding on a longing to feel noble about what we do, QS provides the potential to share with others every accomplishment, regardless of actual significance. QS has become a perfect storm of self-congratulatory reflection, joined with a confluence of data collection and reporting opportunities which support the dawning twenty-first century egotism of believing everyone wants to know what *you* are doing with your life.

Every week it becomes easier to document who we know, where we go, what we eat, how much we exercise, how good we are in bed, how clean we are and even what kind of pet owners we are. Design schools are now offering classes in creating beautiful infographics from QS-based data sets so our personal metrics can be brought together into one seamless representation of *me* for everyone to admire and enjoy. The end game of these myriad products is mainly to reassure users that they are just as awesome as they think they are—the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone, continuously reinventing itself in increasingly infinite loops of self absorption.

Would it be possible to reframe the Quantified Self worldview to support development of design and tech that helps the many, rather than the individual?

I have feelings. Presumably, I do not know how to deal with them.

I am often taken aback by the devout efforts of the design industry to continually find new ways to feed the pure self-interest of its users. Microsoft has devoted untold hours developing a smart bra that alerts wearers (presumably women) when they are stress eating. Just recently, a Japanese company brought to market a bra that only unhooks when the wearer is feeling “true love.” It beggars belief that the Gates Foundation isn’t actively funding the application of these same types of wearable technology to develop a device that notifies teachers when an at-risk student is nodding off in class because she hasn’t eaten a nutritious meal for over twelve hours, which causes me to wonder—would it be possible to reframe the Quantified Self worldview to support development of design and tech that helps the many, rather than the individual?

Recently, I ran across a blog post listing seven UX Design Principles for Quantified Self and it got me thinking about how these same rules for developers might become a guide for shifting perspectives away from the self as individual, and more to the communities we live in, a Quantified Us (QU) approach, if you will, for utilizing all this data. Shouldn’t we be encouraging businesses and developers to produce products and apps that might benefit the community as much as the individual? Is it viable to turn hearts and minds outward, and encourage those interested in personal data collection to actually do something, (optimally, with a minimum of effort) that is contributory and valuable to the wider community, while still giving those individuals an opportunity to feel self-fulfilled and positive about their input?

Quantified Self aficionados are never truly happy unless others know of their accomplishments. What better way to feel superior than to guarantee the ability to broadcast exceptional behavior for the world to applaud? Quantified Us is simply a QS business case, with a slight twist, just waiting to happen. Using the seven rules, I offer below a few fictional concept pitches for promoting the Quantified Us lifestyle.