Evolution of a shut-in, the importance of going outside.
I used stay inside of my house a lot, at one point in my life I had to take vitamin D supplements to make up for how little sun I was getting. Nowadays I try and get out more for my own well being. I thought it would be interesting or enlightening to track not only how often I left my house but also how long and for what reason. I think it will be interesting to see how many mundane tasks I do versus how many unique things I do outside of the house. A consistent group of data that is featured in my visualization is when I leave my house to go to class. I find that this will help emphasize the contrast from the other activities that I do that don’t follow a schedule.
How I went about tracking my data was that every time I left my house, I would take note of the reason why I left my house and time it using the clock app on my phone. For example, if I was leaving to go to school I would write in my notes the date and that I was leaving for school. I would then turn on my timer right when I stepped out of the door. Whenever I got back home I would stop the timer and write down how much time I spent being at school; including the commute. I would even track whenever I went outside for only a couple of minutes.
Doing this project has really put some things into perspective for me. Seeing how much time I spend outside versus being inside makes me happy with my progress from when I was younger. I go outside way more now than I used to and the data visualizations I made puts that notion into a visual representation; making it easier to understand. I also found it interesting that you can see a trend in time spent outside and for what purpose depending on the day of the week. There is a big cluster of red school days next to each other but then it shifts to lighter colored leisure outings. There was a day where I did not go outside at all, which is less than desirable but at the very least, I went outside every single day other than that. Back in those days where I had to take vitamin D supplements, every day would’ve looked like September 5th. I am happy with where I am today.
