Made to measure: why we can’t stop quantifying our lives

Made to measure: why we can’t stop quantifying our lives

Our lives are increasingly defined by numbers. From fitness trackers to social media likes, we're constantly quantifying our existence. But what drives this obsession? And what does it mean for our understanding of self? Let's delve into the world of self-quantification.

The power of measurement in contemporary life

Standard Reference Peanut Butter

The samples themselves are perfectly edible.

In 2003, food critic William Grimes had the chance to taste NIST’s peanut butter. He noted that it didn’t offer the creamy flavours of most consumer brands, looked more like industrial paste than food, and was, all told, entirely average.

The discipline of measurement developed for millennia before it could scrape out the bottom of a jar of peanut butter

Around 6,000 years ago, the first standardized units were deployed in river valley civilisations such as ancient Egypt, where the cubit was defined by the length of the human arm, from elbow to the tip of the middle finger

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