Reflecting Upon The Unintended Consequences of Personal Informatics Systems: A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies

The HCI community has been actively developing and studying the use of Personal Informatics (PI) systems. While celebrating the headways, researchers have uncovered many unintended consequences of using PI systems, such as data-induced stress and obsessive tracking, but there has been a lack of systematic analysis of these consequences and their underlying causes. In this work, we reviewed 172 PI research articles, highlighting that tracking and interacting with personal data can adversely affect individuals' cognitive load, emotional well-being, social acts, and behaviors, while also bringing practical challenges. By synthesizing the pathways through which these consequences occur, we recognized that they arose from multiple aspects, including the data-centric design ideology, variations in individuals' tracking needs and literacy, the social dynamics surrounding them, and the intention-behavior gap. Reflecting on the findings, we discuss how to best leverage personal data in our lives and propose a practice-oriented research agenda to mitigate unintended consequences.