Self-tracking modes: reflexive self-monitoring and data practices

The concept of ‘self-tracking’ (also referred to as life-logging, the quantified self, personal analytics and personal informatics) has recently begun to emerge in discussions of ways in which people can voluntarily monitor and record specific features of their lives, often using digital technologies. There is evidence that the personal data that are derived from individuals engaging in such reflexive self-monitoring are now beginning to be used by actors, agencies and organisations beyond the personal and privatised realm. Self-tracking rationales and sites are proliferating as part of a ‘function creep’ of the technology and ethos of self-tracking. The detail offered by these data on individuals and the growing commodification and commercial value of digital data have led government, managerial and commercial enterprises to explore ways of appropriating self-tracking for their own purposes. In some contexts people are encouraged, ‘nudged’, obliged or coerced into using digital devices to produce personal data which are then used by others. This paper examines these issues, outlining five modes of self-tracking that have emerged: private, communal, pushed, imposed and exploited. The analysis draws upon theoretical perspectives on concepts of selfhood, citizenship, biopolitics and data practices and assemblages in discussing the wider sociocultural implications of the emergence and development of these modes of self-tracking

Sociocultural dimensions of health: contributions to studies on risk, digital sociology, and disinformation

Deborah Lupton is a renowned academic whose research has made significant contributions to the field of digital sociology and the sociocultural dimensions of medicine and public health. In an interview with Reciis, Lupton discusses one of the main contemporary challenges - misinformation and fake news - through the lens of digital sociology and addresses the sociocultural perspectives of risk based on the release of the third edition of her book Risk. In this edition, she includes a new chapter on the issues related to risk and the spread of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. With comments on the Australian and Brazilian scenarios, Lupton delves into the issues of anti-science, denialism, and the role played by populist governments in combating the disease. Finally, she explores the potential of creative methods in qualitative studies, especially those that seek to understand people's rationalities, logics, and feelings

“Remember a condition of academic writing is that we expose ourselves to critique” – 15 steps to revising journal articles

Before having your paper accepted for publication in a peer reviewed journal you’ll almost certainly be required to revise your manuscript at least once. But for less experienced authors this may not always feel so straightforward. Deborah Lupton has compiled a list of quick tips for authors who have been asked to revise their article. Remember that being exposed to critique is an inevitable part of academic writing, challenge yourself to improve your work, address all reviewer comments, and you’ll be ready to resubmit

The Commodification of Patient Opinion: the Digital Patient Experience Economy in the Age of Big Data

As part of the digital health phenomenon, a plethora of interactive digital platforms have been established in recent years to elicit lay people’s experiences of illness and healthcare. The function of these platforms, as expressed on the main pages of their websites, is to provide the tools and forums whereby patients and caregivers, and in some cases medical practitioners, can share their experiences with others, benefit from the support and knowledge of other contributors and contribute to large aggregated data archives as part of developing better medical treatments and services and conducting medical research. However what may not always be readily apparent to the users of these platforms are the growing commercial uses by many of the platforms’ owners of the archives of the data they contribute. This article examines this phenomenon of what I term ‘the digital patient experience economy’. In so doing I discuss such aspects as prosumption, the phenomena of big data and metric assemblages, the discourse and ethic of sharing and the commercialisation of affective labour via such platforms. I argue that via these online platforms patients’ opinions and experiences may be expressed in more diverse and accessible forums than ever before, but simultaneously they have become exploited in novel ways

M-health and health promotion: the digital cyborg and surveillance society

The new mobile wireless computer technologies and social media applications using Web 2.0 platforms have recently received attention from those working in health promotion as a promising new way of achieving their goals of preventing ill-health and promoting healthy behaviours at the population level. There is very little critical examination in this literature of how the use of these digital technologies may affect the targeted groups, in terms of the implications for how individuals experience embodiment, selfhood and social relationships. This article addresses these issues, employing a range of social and cultural theories to do so. It is argued that m-health technologies produce a digital cyborg body. They are able to act not only as prostheses but also as interpreters of the body. The subject produced through the use of m-health technologies is constructed as both an object of surveillance and persuasion and as a responsible citizen who is willing and able to act on the health imperatives issuing forth from the technologies and to present their body/self as open to continual measurement and assessment. The implications of this new way of surveilling the body’s health are discussed

Digitized health promotion: personal responsibility for health in the Web 2.0 era

The new apparatus of what is often termed ‘digital health’ (and also ‘Health 2.0’, ‘Medicine 2.0’, eHealth’ or ‘mHealth’), a conglomeration of new digital technologies addressed at delivering healthcare, preventive medicine and health promotion, has facilitated a focus on measuring and monitoring the functions and activities of lay people’s bodies and encouraging self-care among patients with chronic diseases. It is upon this new approach to identifying and preventing ill health and disease that this working paper focuses. While the digital health approach to the body and health spans the arc from patient care to public health surveillance techniques, the discussion here largely is directed at the implications for the digital health ‘revolution’ in relation to the practice of health promotion; or what I refer to as ‘digitized health promotion’. It is argued that despite concerted efforts on the part of those advocating for a less individualistic approach to health promotion since the 1970s and drawing attention to the social determinants of health, digital health technologies as they are advocated for promoting health represent a renewed focus on personal responsibility for health. In the discourses and practices of digitized health promotion, health risks have become increasingly individualized and viewed as manageable and controllable as long as lay people adopt the appropriate technologies to engage in self-monitoring and self-care. With the advent of the big data produced by digital technologies and the use of sophisticated algorithms to manipulate these data, it has become ever more convenient to focus attention on personal responsibility for health states. The digitalized health promotion phenomenon, therefore, operates as one dimension of the progressive withdrawal of the state in many developed countries from attempting to challenge the social and economic factors causing ill health and disease and efforts to promote social justice

More-than-Human Wellbeing

The ‘More-than-Human Wellbeing’ exhibition draws on several research studies conducted in the Vitalities Lab and UNSW Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. As a research translation and engagement initiative, the exhibition presents materials that communicate the key concepts and findings of these projects. We use multimodal arts-based and multisensory methods – both digital and non-digital – to highlight ways of knowing and being within and beyond the world of self-tracking apps, electronic medical records and smart devices for documenting illness and promoting health and wellbeing. The exhibition seeks to attune visitors to their role in more-than-human ecologies and how their health and wellbeing and that of the planet is entangled. It shows that digital software, data and devices are only part of the manifold ways that people learn about their bodies and their health. It acknowledges that human health is always more-than-human health, and that natural and human-made objects and spaces are intertwined

Digital sociology: beyond the digital to the sociological

The sub-discipline of digital sociology has recently begun to attract attention among sociologists, particularly in the UK. In this paper I undertake a review of some of the most interesting features of the body of digital sociology scholarship as it has thus far emerged. Some might contend that digital sociology is simply a new name for a long-established sociological research interest in computerised and online technologies. However I argue that digital sociology as it has developed in the UK in particular has distinguished itself by developing a distinctive theoretical approach that raises important questions concerning the nature of social research and of sociology as a discipline and a practice in the age of the digital. As such, digital sociology has much broader implications than simply the study of digital technologies

Infant embodiment and interembodiment

This article brings together a range of research and scholarship from various disciplines which have investigated and theorised social and cultural aspects of infants’ bodies within the context of contemporary western societies. It begins with a theoretical overview of dominant concepts of infants’ bodies, including discussion of the concepts of the unfinished body, civility and the Self/Other binary opposition as well as that of interembodiment, drawn from the work of Merleau-Ponty. Then follows discussion of the pleasures and challenging aspects of interembodiment in relation to caregivers’ interactions with infants’ bodies, purity, danger and infant embodiment and lastly practices of surveilling the vulnerable, ‘at risk’ infant body