Digital Health and the Gamification of Life

How Apps Can Promote a Positive Medicalization

Häftad, Engelska, 2020

Av Antonio Maturo, Veronica Moretti, Italy) Maturo, Antonio (University of Bologna, Italy) Moretti, Veronica (University of Bologna

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This book analyses the role of technology in the realm of health. Health apps can promote medicalization and the idea that health is an individual matter, rather than a political and social one.The authors base their arguments around three theoretical frameworks. Quantification: the growing importance in our society of markers, rankings, and scores, which thanks to digital devices is fueled by the ease with which it is now possible to collect data. Gamification: a powerful trend in digital society, using playful features to transform what are seen as dull tasks into competitive and appealing ones. Gamified self-tracking seemingly increases our productivity without oppressing us with apparent self-governance. Finally, Medicalization: a growing social phenomenon of the transformation of a 'normal' condition into something pathological. Several health apps presuppose a conception of the user as an individualized subject divorced from any social determinants of health. The authors investigate the possibility of people sharing their most private states leading to new forms of algorithmic surveillance.Alongside this negative vision of medicalization the authors recover the now-rare concept of positive medicalization, looking at how apps can work as positive self-help devices though promoting a medical framework. A selection of digital programs related to fitness in the workplace are also presented and discussed.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2020-05-15
Mått152 x 229 x 11 mm
Vikt285 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor192
FörlagEmerald Publishing Limited
ISBN9781787543683

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Antonio Francesco Maturo is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Business Law at the University of Bologna, Italy. He taught Sociology of Medicine at Brown University for several years. His research interests are connected to the sociology of health. He has written several articles about the phenomenon of medicalization and digital sociology.Veronica Moretti is Research Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bologna, Italy. Her research interests focus on the intersections between technologies and human activities, with specific emphasis on the sociology of health, surveillance and risk studies, and science, technology, and society approach.

From the perspective of the sociology of health, Maturo and Moretti explore the nature and implications of computer applications with which people can improve and maintain their health through games and competition. Giving equal space to techno-enthusiasts who emphasize the health benefits of digital health, and critical thinkers who point out how digital health can lead to social exclusion, they argue that both are right. Their topics include self-tracking and the quantification of everyday life, how apps foster medicalization, the dark side of digital health, and exercise is (also) medicine.