"At the end of the day, I am accountable": Gig Workers' Self-Tracking for Multi-Dimensional Accountability Management

Rie Helene Hernandez, Qiurong Song, Yubo Kou, Xinning Gui

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tracking is inherent in and central to the gig economy. Platforms track gig workers' performance through metrics such as acceptance rate and punctuality, while gig workers themselves engage in self-tracking. Although prior research has extensively examined how gig platforms track workers through metrics - with some studies briefly acknowledging the phenomenon of self-tracking among workers - there is a dearth of studies that explore how and why gig workers track themselves. To address this, we conducted 25 semi-structured interviews, revealing how gig workers self-track to manage accountabilities to themselves and external entities across three identities: the holistic self, the entrepreneurial self, and the platformized self. We connect our findings to neoliberalism, through which we contextualize gig workers' self-accountability and the invisible labor of self-tracking. We further discuss how self-tracking mitigates information and power asymmetries in gig work and offer design implications to support gig workers' multi-dimensional self-tracking.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCHI 2024 - Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Sytems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
ISBN (Electronic)9798400703300
DOIs
StatePublished - May 11 2024
Event2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Sytems, CHI 2024 - Hybrid, Honolulu, United States
Duration: May 11 2024May 16 2024

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Conference

Conference2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Sytems, CHI 2024
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityHybrid, Honolulu
Period5/11/245/16/24

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

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