Komoot. Dati, socievolezza e auto-tracciamento

Abstract

Sports and physical activity apps play a fundamental role in the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals. This leads us to consider contemporary sociality as a system of global interrelationships and networks, with the individual constantly connected to others through PCs and mobile devices. The article, starting with a digital ethnography of the Komoot app (used in cycling) aims to illustrate how this software produces ambivalence. An exaltation of the socialisation of our experiences and a healthy lifestyle is sometimes echoed by certain customisation and/or self-monitoring practices that influence our behaviour through calculation, competition and performance. The aim of this paper is to show how a playful dimension of our routine activities, linked to a process of quantifying the self is tangible; aspects, both of which are central to the establishment of the neoliberal ethos.