ABSTRACT
The project “The Measured Life” investigated the motives for and effects of metric optimisation in the areas of social media and relationships, work and organisations and body tracking using qualitative and quantitative research approaches. The focus was on the complex interdependencies and translations between culture and psyche in the digitally optimising society as well as the shifts in social and individual normality and pathology. This chapter summarises the key findings in a concentrated form. Across all areas analysed, it was shown that the fulfilment of wishes directed at digital media and practices is regularly missed, which leads to characteristic ambivalences and strategies on the part of subjects and institutions in dealing with digital quantification. The constant attempt to still achieve the desired normalises digital optimisation as a cultural practice with partly counterproductive consequences.
