Quantified Self, Digital Discipline, and the Self-Identity Crisis: An Analysis Based on a Survey of Wearable Devices among College Students

Recent research increasingly focuses on how individuals use wearable devices to track, analyze, and share personal physical data, engaging in quantified self-practices. Despite this, the psychological impacts of extensive digital surveillance enabled by such technologies have been underexplored. Employing modernity theory and analyzing micro-survey data, this study investigates how quantification technology acts as a dynamic catalyst for self-identity crises through digital discipline. Our findings suggest that quantified self-practices intensify perceptions of digital discipline, thus augmenting surveillance over personal behaviors. The ideal standards fostered by the quantified self engender a dichotomy between the natural and the digital body, perpetuating a perceived disconnect between these entities. The empirical analysis reveals a mediating role of this perceived gap in the relationship between digital discipline and self-identity crises. However, the hypothesized mediating effect of subjectivity obscuration in this relationship does not reach statistical significance. The study concludes that the impact of quantified self on identity crises, mediated by digital discipline, epitomizes technological alienation in contemporary society, highlighting the tension between instrumental and value rationality. The digital body, as redefined by quantification technology, increasingly serves as both a mode of self-expression and an instrument of power discipline.

近年来，学界愈发关注个体如何使用可穿戴设备（wearable devices）追踪、分析并分享个人身体数据，投身于量化自我（quantified self）实践。尽管如此，此类技术所赋能的大规模数字监控行为，其心理影响仍未得到充分探索。本研究依托现代性理论（modernity theory），通过分析微观调研数据（micro-survey data），探讨量化技术如何通过数字规训（digital discipline）成为自我认同危机（self-identity crises）的动态催化因素。研究结果表明，量化自我实践强化了个体对数字规训的感知，进而加剧了对个人行为的监控；量化自我所催生的理想标准，在自然躯体与数字躯体之间制造了二元对立，进一步延续了二者间的感知割裂。实证分析显示，这种感知鸿沟在数字规训与自我认同危机的关系中发挥了中介作用。不过，本研究假设的主体性遮蔽在该关系中的中介效应未达到统计学显著性（statistical significance）水平。本研究得出结论：量化自我对身份危机的影响以数字规训为中介，这一过程具象化了当代社会的技术异化（technological alienation），凸显了工具理性与价值理性之间的张力；经量化技术重构的数字躯体，正日益兼具自我表达载体与权力规训工具的双重属性。