„I am Monitoring so I am … Healthier.” The Consequences of the Dynamic Expansion of Health Self-Tracking Devices

Marta Makowska, Agnieszka Maj

Abstract


The article presents the issue, which is still little-known in Poland, and relates to monitoring one’s health using self-tracking applications and devices. Based on the narrative literature review, numerous positive and negative consequences of self-monitoring of health have been identified. It has been shown that the development of technology has had an impact on changing the understanding of the term “healthcare”, which now must take into account the fact that patients become experts of their bodies as they can measure different aspects of it. The article also discusses the concept of “self-tracking culture”, indicating that its actors are not only members of the Quantified Self social movement, but also doctors, health care institutions and even some employers. In the article the distinction between “voluntary” and “recommended” self-tracking is made. The sociological interpretations of the phenomenon of self-tracking were also presented. Finally, potential areas of sociological research concerning this phenomenon are shown.


Keywords


Self-tracking; Quantified Self; health; lifestyle; new technologies.

References


Ancker, J. S., Witteman, H. O., Hafeez, B., Provencher, T., Van de Graaf, M., Wei, E. (2015). “You Get Reminded You’re a Sick Person”: Personal Data Tracking and Patients with Multiple Chronic Conditions, Journal of Medical Internet Research, 17(8). doi: 10.2196/jmir.4209

Appelboom, G., Camacho, E., Abraham, M. E., Bruce, S. S., Dumont, E. L., Zacharia, B. E, D'Amico, R., Slomian, J., Reginster, J.Y., Bruyère, O., Connolly, E. S. (2014). Smart Wearable Body Sensors for Patient Self-Assessment and Monitoring. Archives of Public Health, 72(28). doi: 10.1186/2049-3258-72-28

Bauman, Z. (1995). Ciało i przemoc w obliczu ponowoczesności. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika.

Barrett, M. A., Humblet, O., Hiatt R. A., Adler, N. E. (2013). Big Data and Disease Prevention: From Quantified Self to Quantified Communities. Big Data 1(3), 168-175. doi: 10.1089/big.2013.0027

Beck, U., Giddens, A., Lash, S. (2009). Modernizacja refleksyjna: polityka, tradycja i estetyka w porządku społecznym nowoczesności. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Bednarowska, Z. (2015). Desk research – wykorzystanie potencjału danych zastanych w prowadzeniu badań marketingowych i społecznych. Marketing i Rynek, (7), 18-26.

Booth, A., Sutton, A., Papaioannou, D. (2016). Systematic approaches to a successful literature review. Los Angeles: Sage.

Borowiec, A., Lignowska, I., Makowska, M. (2009). Czy działania edukacyjne prowadzone w ramach profilaktyki i promocji zdrowia kreują „nowych dewiantów”? Problemy Polityki Społecznej, (12), 169-182.

Carroll, J. K., Moorhead, A., Bond, R., LeBlanc, W. G., Petrella, R. J., & Fiscella, K. (2017). Who uses mobile phone health apps and does use matter? A secondary data analytics approach. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(4), e125. doi:10.2196/jmir.5604

Choe, E. K., Lee, N. B., Lee, B., Pratt, W., Kientz, J. A. (2014). Understanding Quantified-Selfers' Practices in Collecting and Exploring Personal Data. W: B. Begole, J. Kim (red.), Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems. New York, ACM.

Comstock, J. (2018). Smartwatches will Make up 1/3 of the Wearables Market in 2018. Pobrane z: https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/idc-smartwatches-will-make-13-wearables-market-2018

Conrad, P. (2007). The medicalization of society: On the transformation of human conditions into treatable disorders. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Contino, G. (2016). The Medicalization of Health and Shared Responsibility. The New Bioethics. A Multidisciplinary Journal of Biotechnology and the Body, 22(1), 45-55. doi: 10.1080/20502877.2016.1151253

Cook, D. J., Mulrow, C. D., Haynes, R. B. (1997). Systematic reviews: synthesis of best evidence for clinical decisions. Annals of Internal Medicine, (5), 376-380. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-126-5-199703010-00006

Crawford, R. (1980). Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal of Health Services, 10(3), 365-388. doi: 10.2190/3H2H-3XJN-3KAY-G9NY

Espeland, W. N., Stevens, M.L. (2008). A Sociology of Quantification, European Journal of Sociology, 49(3), 401-436. doi: 10.1017/S0003975609000150

Freund, P. E. (2004). Civilised Bodies Redux: Seams in the Cyborg. Social Theory & Health, (2), 273–289. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700031

Foucault, M. (1995). Historia seksualności. Warszawa: Czytelnik.

Gartner Market Research. (2016). Gartner Survey Shows Wearable Devices Need to Be More Useful. Pobrane z: https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3537117

Głodzik, W. (2017). Nowości w zaleceniach PTD na 2017 rok – gdzie zaszły zmiany? Pobrane z: https://www.mp.pl/cukrzyca/aktualnosci/163556,nowosci-w-zaleceniach-ptd-na-2017-rok-gdzie-zaszly-zmiany

Giddens, A. (2006). Nowoczesność i tożsamość: „ja” i społeczeństwo w epoce późnej nowoczesności. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Hoy, M. B. (2016). Personal Activity Trackers and the Quantified Self. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 35(1), 94-100: doi: 10.1080/02763869.2016.1117300

Iwasiński, Ł. (2017). Quantified Self. Self-tracking a problem tożsamości. Zagadnienia Informacji Naukowej - Studia Informacyjne, 55(2), 126-136.

Jacyno, M. (2007). Kultura indywidualizmu. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Key, A. (2017). Będzie bolało. London: Picador.

Kim, J. (2014). Analysis of health consumers' behavior using self-tracker for activity, sleep, and diet. Telemedicine and e-Health, 20(6), 552-558, doi: 10.1089/tmj.2013.0282.

Lawer, J. (2018). Cardiac Health Symposium — Key Takeaways from the Quantified Self. Pobrane z: https://medium.com/quantified-self-dublin/cardiac-health-symposium-key-takeaways-from-the-quantified-self-189a24293059

Levis, T. (2012). Self-tracking: the people turning their bodies into medical labs. The Guardian. Pobrane z: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/nov/24/self-tracking-health-wellbeing-smartphones

Lupton, D., Petersen A. (1996). The New Public Health: Health and the Self in the Age of Risk. London: Sage.

Lupton, D. (2013). Quantifying the body: monitoring and measuring health in the age of mHealth technologies. Critical Public Health, 23(4), 393-403. doi: 10.1080/09581596.2013.794931

Lupton, D. (2014). Self-tracking Cultures: Towards a Sociology of Personal Informatics. W: T. Leong (red.), Proceedings of the 26th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference on Designing Futures: the Future of Design. New York: ACM.

Lupton, D. (2017). Self-tracking, Health and Medicine. Health Sociology Review, 26(1), 1-5. doi: 10.1080/14461242.2016.1228149

Makowska, M. (2013). Desk research. W: M. Makowska (red.), Analiza danych zastanych. Przewodnik dla studentów. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.

Makowska, M., Nowakowski, M. (2018). Socjologia faramaceutyków jako „subpole” socjologii medycyny. Przegląd Socjologiczny, 67(4), 97-115

The Medical Futurist. (2017). How I Optimized My Sleep With Technology. Pobrane z: https://medicalfuturist.com/how-i-optimized-my-sleep-with-technology

Mikowska, M./TNS. (2015). Polska.jest.mobi. Jestem.3.

Nafus, D. (2016). Quantified: Biosensing technologies in everyday life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Orłowska, A., Mazur, Z., Łaguna, M. (2017). Systematyczny przegląd literatury: Na czym polega i czym różni się od innych przeglądów? Ogrody Nauk i Sztuk, (7), 350-363.

New Scientist. (2015, 30 listopad). The quantified self [Plik wideo]. Pobrane z: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wqC6ad1V_Q

Piras, E. M., Miele, F. (2017). Clinical self-tracking and monitoring technologies: negotiations in the ICT-mediated patient–provider relationship. Health Sociology Review, 26(1), 38-53. doi: 10.1080/14461242.2016.1212316

Quantified Self. (2011). Thomas Christiansen: Debugging My Allergy. Pobrane z: http://quantifiedself.com/2011/12/thomas-christiansen-debugging-my-allergy/

Quantified Self. (2014). Pobrane z: http://quantifiedself.com/allergies/

Quantified Self. (2017). Tracking effect of caffeine on weight loss. Pobrane z: https://forum.quantifiedself.com/t/tracking-effect-of-caffeine-on-weight-loss/3684

Quantified Self. (2018). Tracking Blood Sugar Jain blog. Pobrane z: https://eric.jain.name/2018/11/25/tracking-blood-sugar/

Research2Guidance. (2017). mHealth app economics 2017/2018: current status and future trends in mobile health. Pobrane z: https://research2guidance.com/product/mhealth-economics-2017-current-status-and-future-trends-in-mobile-health/

Schilling, C. (2010). Socjologia ciała. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Schilling, C. (2005). The Body in Culture, Technology and Society. London: Sage.

Sharon, T. (2017). Self-Tracking for Health and the Quantified Self: Re-Articulating Autonomy, Solidarity, and Authenticity in an Age of Personalized Healthcare. Philosophy & Technology, 30(1), 93–121. doi: 10.1007/s13347-016-0215-5

Słońska Z., Misiuna M. (1993). Promocja zdrowia. Słownik podstawowych terminów. Warszawa: Agencja Promo-Lider.

Spiller, K., Ball, K., Bandara, A., Meadows, M., McCormick, C., Nuseibeh, B., Price, B. A. (2018). Data Privacy: Users’ Thoughts on Quantified Self Personal Data. W: A. Btihaj (red.), Self-Tracking: Empirical and Philosophical Investigations. Cham, Palgrave Macmillan.

Swan, M. (2009). Emerging Patient-Driven Health Care Models: An Examination of Health Social Networks, Consumer Personalized Medicine and Quantified Self-Tracking. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 6(2), 492-525. doi: 10.3390/ijerph6020492

Swan, M. (2012). Health 2050: the realization of personalized medicine through crowdsourcing, the quantifiedself, and the participatory biocitizen. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 2(3), 93-118. doi: 10.3390/jpm2030093

Turner, B. S. (1996). The body and society: Exploration in social theory. London: Sage.

Wróblewski, M. (2016). Nowe szaty healthismu. Self-tracking, neoliberalizm i kapitalizm kognitywny. Folia Sociologica, (58), 5-23. doi: 10.18778/0208-600X.58.01




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/ks.2019.7.2.5-17
Date of publication: 2020-11-19 19:44:12
Date of submission: 2020-06-08 00:32:12


Statistics


Total abstract view - 1013
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF (Język Polski) - 373 PDF (Język Polski) - 153

Indicators



Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2020 Agnieszka Maj, Marta Makowska

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.