In Hacking Happiness, futurist and contributing Mashable writer John C. Havens introduces you to your quantified self—your digital identity represented by gigabytes of data produced from tracking your activities on your smartphone and computer. Harvested by megacorporations such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, Havens argues that companies gather this data because of its immense economic value, encouraging a culture of sharing as they hoard the information based on our lives for private monetary gain.But theres an alternative to this digital dystopia. Emerging technologies will help us reclaim this valuable data for ourselves, so we can directly profit from the insights linked to our quantified selves. At the same time, sensors in smartphones and wearable devices will help us track our emotions to improve our well-being based on the science of positive psychology.
