It’s Time to Relax: The Critical Importance of Digital Mental Health Products in the Context of Surveillance Capitalism
There has been a huge increase in the use of digital technology throughout healthcare in recent years, with everything from apps to wearable tech. The mental health and wellbeing sector has been no exception. There are a wide variety of digital mental health apps available directly from app stores,...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Catalan |
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Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering
2021-07-01
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| Series: | Temes de Disseny |
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| Online Access: | https://192.168.73.126/index.php/Temes/article/view/417815 |
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| author | Sena Partal Sasha Smirnova |
| author_facet | Sena Partal Sasha Smirnova |
| author_sort | Sena Partal |
| collection | DOAJ |
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There has been a huge increase in the use of digital technology throughout healthcare in recent years, with everything from apps to wearable tech. The mental health and wellbeing sector has been no exception. There are a wide variety of digital mental health apps available directly from app stores, making therapeutic techniques accessible for every smartphone user.
The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing quarantines and lockdowns, followed by the current economic recession, have redefined the tech world's agenda. There has been an increased emphasis on mental wellbeing. Many of the well-known tech companies, whose core business is not even related to healthcare (such as Facebook, Telefonica, or Google) have invested in mental wellbeing, either through “moonshots” or by introducing new product segments. For their critics, this is a “do-good” gesture intended to detract attention from their data extraction processes. This leads us to question, what is it that these companies want to recommend to people through the use of mental wellbeing tech? What is the new set of values that they are promoting?
In this article we critically analyse digital mental health products. We discuss how they might become a political tool, speculate on their side effects, and investigate outcomes of their increasing popularity. We want to move beyond the personal data privacy debate and tackle other potential issues – what does this data sharing mean in terms of a shift in collective psychology and ideologies? What is the potential for them to become political tools? Is this a step towards human and non-human convergence?
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-401cbca8a5024cb0802ccd936ecb4f4b |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2604-9155 2604-6032 |
| language | Catalan |
| publishDate | 2021-07-01 |
| publisher | Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Temes de Disseny |
| spelling | doaj-art-401cbca8a5024cb0802ccd936ecb4f4b2025-08-20T02:22:33ZcatElisava Barcelona School of Design and EngineeringTemes de Disseny2604-91552604-60322021-07-0137It’s Time to Relax: The Critical Importance of Digital Mental Health Products in the Context of Surveillance CapitalismSena Partalhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9020-5397Sasha Smirnova There has been a huge increase in the use of digital technology throughout healthcare in recent years, with everything from apps to wearable tech. The mental health and wellbeing sector has been no exception. There are a wide variety of digital mental health apps available directly from app stores, making therapeutic techniques accessible for every smartphone user. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing quarantines and lockdowns, followed by the current economic recession, have redefined the tech world's agenda. There has been an increased emphasis on mental wellbeing. Many of the well-known tech companies, whose core business is not even related to healthcare (such as Facebook, Telefonica, or Google) have invested in mental wellbeing, either through “moonshots” or by introducing new product segments. For their critics, this is a “do-good” gesture intended to detract attention from their data extraction processes. This leads us to question, what is it that these companies want to recommend to people through the use of mental wellbeing tech? What is the new set of values that they are promoting? In this article we critically analyse digital mental health products. We discuss how they might become a political tool, speculate on their side effects, and investigate outcomes of their increasing popularity. We want to move beyond the personal data privacy debate and tackle other potential issues – what does this data sharing mean in terms of a shift in collective psychology and ideologies? What is the potential for them to become political tools? Is this a step towards human and non-human convergence? https://192.168.73.126/index.php/Temes/article/view/417815Digital mental health productscollective psychologysurveillance capitalismdata productsprivacy policiesuser interaction |
| spellingShingle | Sena Partal Sasha Smirnova It’s Time to Relax: The Critical Importance of Digital Mental Health Products in the Context of Surveillance Capitalism Temes de Disseny Digital mental health products collective psychology surveillance capitalism data products privacy policies user interaction |
| title | It’s Time to Relax: The Critical Importance of Digital Mental Health Products in the Context of Surveillance Capitalism |
| title_full | It’s Time to Relax: The Critical Importance of Digital Mental Health Products in the Context of Surveillance Capitalism |
| title_fullStr | It’s Time to Relax: The Critical Importance of Digital Mental Health Products in the Context of Surveillance Capitalism |
| title_full_unstemmed | It’s Time to Relax: The Critical Importance of Digital Mental Health Products in the Context of Surveillance Capitalism |
| title_short | It’s Time to Relax: The Critical Importance of Digital Mental Health Products in the Context of Surveillance Capitalism |
| title_sort | it s time to relax the critical importance of digital mental health products in the context of surveillance capitalism |
| topic | Digital mental health products collective psychology surveillance capitalism data products privacy policies user interaction |
| url | https://192.168.73.126/index.php/Temes/article/view/417815 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT senapartal itstimetorelaxthecriticalimportanceofdigitalmentalhealthproductsinthecontextofsurveillancecapitalism AT sashasmirnova itstimetorelaxthecriticalimportanceofdigitalmentalhealthproductsinthecontextofsurveillancecapitalism |