IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v322y2023ics0277953623001673.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Liquid Health. Medicine in the age of surveillance capitalism

Author

Listed:
  • Rubeis, Giovanni

Abstract

Digital health technologies transform practices, roles, and relationships in medicine. New possibilities for a ubiquitous and constant data collection and the processing of data in real-time enable more personalized health services. These technologies might also allow users to actively participate in health practices, thus potentially changing the role of patients from passive receivers of healthcare to active agents. The crucial driving force of this transformation is the implementation of data-intensive surveillance and monitoring as well as self-monitoring technologies. Some commentators use terms like revolution, democratization, and empowerment to describe the aforementioned transformation process in medicine. The public debate as well as most of the ethical discourse on digital health tends to focus on the technologies themselves, mostly ignoring the economic framework of their design and implementation. Analyzing the transformation process connected to digital health technologies needs an epistemic lens that also considers said economic framework, which I argue is surveillance capitalism. This paper introduces the concept of liquid health as such an epistemic lens. Liquid health is based on Zygmunt Bauman's framing of modernity as a process of liquefaction that dissolves traditional norms and standards, roles, and relations. By using liquid health as an epistemic lens, I aim to show how digital health technologies reshape concepts of health and illness, change the scope of the medical domain, and liquify roles and relationships that surround health and healthcare. The basic hypothesis is that although digital health technologies can lead to personalization of treatment and empowerment of users, their economic framework of surveillance capitalism may undermine these very goals. Using liquid health as a concept allows us to better understand and describe practices of health and healthcare that are shaped by digital technologies and the specific economic practices they are inseparably attached to.

Suggested Citation

  • Rubeis, Giovanni, 2023. "Liquid Health. Medicine in the age of surveillance capitalism," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 322(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:322:y:2023:i:c:s0277953623001673
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115810
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623001673
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115810?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barbara Prainsack, 2020. "The value of healthcare data: to nudge, or not?," Policy Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 547-562, September.
    2. Petrakaki, Dimitra & Hilberg, Eva & Waring, Justin, 2021. "The Cultivation of Digital Health Citizenship," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    3. Melanie Swan, 2009. "Emerging Patient-Driven Health Care Models: An Examination of Health Social Networks, Consumer Personalized Medicine and Quantified Self-Tracking," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-34, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chuan-Jun Su & Chang-Yu Chiang, 2013. "IAServ: An Intelligent Home Care Web Services Platform in a Cloud for Aging-in-Place," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-25, November.
    2. Katharina Pilgrim & Sabine Bohnet-Joschko, 2022. "Donating Health Data to Research: Influential Characteristics of Individuals Engaging in Self-Tracking," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-12, August.
    3. Jingyun Tang & Guang Yu & Xiaoxu Yao, 2020. "A Comparative Study of Online Depression Communities in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-13, July.
    4. Carlos de las Heras-Pedrosa & Dolores Rando-Cueto & Carmen Jambrino-Maldonado & Francisco J. Paniagua-Rojano, 2020. "Exploring the Social Media on the Communication Professionals in Public Health. Spanish Official Medical Colleges Case Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-17, July.
    5. Lane Peterson Fronczek & Martin Mende & Maura L. Scott & Gergana Y. Nenkov & Anders Gustafsson, 2023. "Friend or foe? Can anthropomorphizing self-tracking devices backfire on marketers and consumers?," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(5), pages 1075-1097, September.
    6. Paul Dulaud & Ines Di Loreto & Denis Mottet, 2020. "Self-Quantification Systems to Support Physical Activity: From Theory to Implementation Principles," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-22, December.
    7. Lane Peterson Fronczek & Martin Mende & Maura L. Scott, 2022. "From self‐quantification to self‐objectification? Framework and research agenda on consequences for well‐being," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 1356-1374, September.
    8. Yingjie Lu & Xinwei Wang & Lin Su & Han Zhao, 2023. "Multiplex Social Network Analysis to Understand the Social Engagement of Patients in Online Health Communities," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-20, October.
    9. Mazanderani, Fadhila & Kirkpatrick, Susan F. & Ziebland, Sue & Locock, Louise & Powell, John, 2021. "Caring for care: Online feedback in the context of public healthcare services," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    10. Bart Verhees & Kees Van Kuijk & Lianne Simonse, 2017. "Care Model Design for E-Health: Integration of Point-of-Care Testing at Dutch General Practices," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, December.
    11. Yumei Li & Xiangbin Yan, 2020. "How Could Peers in Online Health Community Help Improve Health Behavior," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-17, April.
    12. Martin Wiesner & Daniel Pfeifer, 2014. "Health Recommender Systems: Concepts, Requirements, Technical Basics and Challenges," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-28, March.
    13. Reilley, Jacob & Pflueger, Dane & Huber, Christian, 2024. "A typology of evaluative health platforms: Commercial interests and their implications for patient voice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 350(C).
    14. Erzsébet Forczek & Péter Makra & Cecilia Sik Lanyi & Ferenc Bari, 2015. "The Internet as a New Tool in the Rehabilitation Process of Patients—Education in Focus," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-19, February.
    15. Tobias Mettler & Jochen Wulf, 2020. "Health promotion with physiolytics: What is driving people to subscribe in a data-driven health plan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-19, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:322:y:2023:i:c:s0277953623001673. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.