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Accepted Paper:
The autocorrection of the self. A case study of a digital mental health app in the context of self-tracking and self-monitoring.
Marras Lycklama a Nijeholt
(University of Amsterdam)
This paper takes the case of a digital mental health application (Mindstrong Health) to analyze and theorize usage, perceptions of its self-tracking and self-monitoring audience; and reflects on it’s effective impact on users’ mental health.
Paper long abstract:
Mindstrong Health is a medical app that provides digital mental health support but is mostly characterized by its use of data collected through the way people use their smartphones. The underlying assumption behind the working methodology and selfproclaimed goals of the app can be taken in a broader context of the self-tracking and self-monitoring developments. The research question of this paper is: How can the ideology behind the Mindstrong Health app be understood in the discourse where technology is perceived as the ultimate solution? To answer this question the concept ‘technological fetishism’ deriving from David Harvey and ‘solutionism’ of Evgeny Morozov will be guiding. The former concept leads to discuss the way technology is perceived as a phenomenon that holds the power to overcome issues. This blind faith in technology, argues Harvey, provides technology of ‘magical powers’ while at the same time it is alienating the process that precedes or is intertwined with technology. While Harvey builds his argument following Marx and the mode of production, does Morozov discuss technology in the context of advanced technology where internet and self-tracking are major players, combining those features in the concept ‘solutionism’ (2013: 5).