ABSTRACT
This chapter examines social relationships in the context of digital transformation in contemporary society and the increasing importance of digital measuring and comparing. Drawing on findings from the research project “The Measured Life”, the chapter analyses how specific forms of relationship formation are related to digital measurement practices, particularly through self-tracking in its body-related quality, as well as numerical and comparative phenomena on social media platforms. Analysing two narrative-biographical interviews as examples, it is reconstructed against which biographical backgrounds digital numbers acquire specific meanings and which desires and forms of avoidance can be associated with them. The analysis of the connection between the digital medium and forms of relationship formation shows how digital interactions change relationships and the processing or rejection of relationship experiences. Thereby individual dispositions, technical offerings and cultural as well as societal changes intertwine in a complex way.
