For this project, you will collect and analyze data regarding some “personal metric” of your choosing. This project will count as 5% of your course grade.
Choose your variable:
Choose something you’re interested in measuring about your daily life. We will discuss some examples in class this Wednesday (and we will post some ideas in the comments below).
You can get some ideas by searching the web for “quantified self” or “self-tracking.” In fact, there is a recent MIT Press book titled Self-Tracking, which has this in its description:
People keep track. In the eighteenth century, Benjamin Franklin kept charts of time spent and virtues lived up to. Today, people use technology to self-track: hours slept, steps taken, calories consumed, medications administered. Ninety million wearable sensors were shipped in 2014 to help us gather data about our lives. This book examines how people record, analyze, and reflect on this data, looking at the tools they use and the communities they become part of.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/self-tracking
Deadline: Choose your variable by Monday, Feb 22.
Data collection:
After you have chosen your personal variable, start recording your data on a (more or less) daily basis:
- Set up a spreadsheet with columns for “Date” and “[Variable name]”; you can also include a third column for “Notes.”
- Each day, enter the data in your spreadsheet.
- Use the optional “Notes” column to record any information that may be useful later when you analyze your data (for example, to explain outliers).
Data analysis:
At the end of the semester you will use your spreadsheet to
- create a frequency table and histogram using your data
- create a time series plot of your data;
- compute the standard summary statistics (mean, median, variance, standard deviation);
- briefly describe (in 1-2 paragraphs) the distribution and analyze the summary statistics.
Further details (and an example) on how to describe the distribution and analyze the summary statistics will be discussed in class over the course of the semester.
At what time I get up from bed on work days vs off days.
How much miles you walk per day
Steps I take everyday
Amount of water you drink daily
Amount of time using phone
amount of calories you eat
here is the spreadsheet I set up in class on Wednesday, which you can use as a template for recording your data for your project:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k2Bv3U_bwEr1R0_qTYez3xKTrUSkQ4mIcfwZN4akZmk/edit?usp=sharing
amount of times of screen unlocks on my phone
Amount of time that I spend with my kids per day
Amount of time I spend on Webull app.
Amount of water bottles I finish (16oz)
Amount of time playing video game?
Time I spend on Robinhood.
Amount of time using the computer for different purposes
I will measure steps walked to work on days that I drive and days I take the train.
Time spent operating my computer
the amount of water i drink everyday
Amount of time spent playing games or watching entertainment
Glasses of water I intake daily.
Amount of calories burned in a day.
Hours coding every day