not just random

This is one of those posts that I feel tempted to prefix with the words “well, if you could add some additional hardware in your head …”, but I won’t go there.

We all follow patterns in some way. Habits and conscious/subconscious behavior. Far is it from me to declare judgment on any of those but it is probably safe to say that some patterns are more helpful than others and often we may not even be aware of how/to what extend we are following them.

Observing/being aware of a pattern seems to be a good prerequisite to understanding, measuring and eventually changing it. Really, what could be a good way though to find the patterns in one’s behavior?

There seem to be two components:

• Log all (relevant) events.
• Indicate patterns.

If you wanted to see, how you spend your time you could carry a notebook with you and carefully log down each thing you do, being as granular as you want. After keeping this up for a couple days you will probably get an idea as to how often your flow is interrupted by phone calls, restroom visits, eating, etc.

Are you going to keep up the logging though? Probably not. It’s not a whole lot of fun and eventually incurs a noticeable time overhead.

If a process is disruptive to your normal behavior your are not likely to keep following it, unless the rewards clearly outweigh the costs. It simply does not feel right. There are some patterns we should be able to work with more easily though.

Two examples that immediately come to mind are:

• Internet browsing. What sites are visited, how often, at what times, etc.
• Software usage. How many programs are open at the same time, at what times, what programs, etc.

That works, because you use the computer as the interface. Life really is not in general like that though.

I recently came across some of John Krumm’s work, such as Predestination: Where Do You Want to Go Today? (pdf), in which driving patterns (via GPS) of people are analyzed to determine probabilities of locations. That is fascinating material.

There are of course a lot of different areas where people follow noteworthy patterns:

• Location
• Walking speed
• Speech
• Alertness
• Health
• Activity
• etc.

I am sure some day we will be able to measure and log all of those and more in unobtrusive ways. A lot of things will probably become obvious and more readily interpreted than without. Patterns will emerge that existed before, though weren’t clear to see because no one knew where/how exactly to look.

If we can get the computer interface into those areas in a way that is not disruptive to your daily routine, maybe some hardware implants …