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In Our metrics, ourselves: A hundred years of self-tracking from the weight scale to the wrist wearable device, authors discuss the relationship between data, bodies and self-improvement in the emergence of wearable self-tracking technologies, a phenomenon which reflects the simultaneous commodification and knowledge-making that occurs between data and bodies. Ultimately, the authors posit that ‘the production and use of big data of the body has simultaneous epistemological, legal and physiological implications’ – enables agency through self-knowledge which can be experienced as pleasurable and powerful. Consequently, the article divides itself into four main ideas. Firstly, the authors discuss the shift of the weight scale from the doctor’s office to the street to the home – the weight scale demonstrates that tracking devices are pivotal in the normalization of ‘knowing and controlling bodies’, a powerful form of self-knowledge. Moving on, the article discusses the emergence of wearable self-tracking devices and the many ways it functions, from monitoring heart rate and sleeping patterns to offering mechanisms of intervention. The article then shifts to a ‘critical comparison of advertising’ to get a better understanding of the rhetorical framings of the weight scale and the wearable self-tracker. Lastly, the article looks at how the wearable device data are being used in court, and how this shifts the whole dynamics of the law.

The article does a good job at presenting an unbiased discussion of the emergence of the wearable self-tracking technologies, weighing the advantages as well as the disadvantages that it imposes on individuals in society. Nonetheless, I ultimately agree with the authors claim, specifically how it has the ability to empower individuals through self-knowledge. From a medical perspective, such technology will allow patients to monitor their own health, making it more accessible to think about our own biology. For example, patients with a chronic condition such as diabetes would highly benefit from a self-monitoring medical technology, alerting them earlier to a change in their health which needs medical attention. This redirects power from the disease to the body, decreasing the sense of helplessness that the individual would normally feel. It is therefore interesting how technology makes visible what is normally invisible to the layman individual. Furthermore, the individual becomes central to the healthcare delivery process because they can manage their own health and seek the necessary medical attention if needed, as opposed to waiting until the symptoms get horrible and visible. Such technology would also prove effective in cutting healthcare costs.

However, I think it is important to acknowledge that this argument is largely centered around first-world countries where healthcare is already advanced and does a good job in helping its citizens. On the other hand, it does make me question whether such technology discriminates against third world countries, further deepening the divide between what is accessible and inaccessible to individuals from different parts of the world.

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6111409/

My blogpost for this week will be focused on the arguments and ideas from Hobbs, Owen and Gerber’s Liquid Love? Dating apps, sex, relationships and the digital transformation of intimacy. The authors contextualize their research based on Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of liquid love which asserts the fragility of modern-day relationships. According to Bauman, the idea of a long-term committed relationship proves difficult in the era of dating apps such as Tinder because of the ‘proliferation of extensive networks of romantic possibility’. The authors therefore started this research to explore the validity of Bauman’s argument as well as to add on to the gaps of existing literature regarding this topic. In collecting and analyzing data through an online survey and in-depth interviews, the authors ultimately argue that such dating apps do not alter the traditional notions of love and intimacy, and instead perpetuate such values as technology serve as a means to pursue meaningful partnerships. The authors did present instances in which participants used such dating apps purely for sexual purposes, but nonetheless clearly indicated their intentions to prevent confusion for potential partners, underscoring the overall effectiveness of such dating apps.

However, I argue instead that the phenomena of dating apps in modern day society diminishes the value of intimacy and loyalty in a relationship precisely because of the increased accessibility to the current dating market, constantly perpetuating a sense of dissatisfaction. Although the ideas given in this research paper hold some validity, I do observe certain problems with their methodology which might therefore affect the rationality of arguments posited by the authors. The sampling method, use of snowball sampling, might prove problematic because the researchers can only rely on the previous subjects that were observed. It also brings about sampling bias because it is highly likely that because subjects would nominate people they know, they would most likely share similar traits and characteristics. Hence, it is no surprise when the researchers claim that the data collected suggest ‘that traditional views on dating, relationships and monogamy are still largely prevalent’. This research was also done in the western context, with majority of the participants being Australians. Therefore, it is highly likely that the ideas would not be relevant to Asian societies such as Singapore.

The concept of mobile affordances enhances the spontaneity and frequency of use, users can now access the pool of available single users anywhere and at any time, making it difficult for Singaporeans to want to settle down. It allows users to go through multiple first dates in a short span of time, meeting many people, decreasing the urgency for them to choose a partner. The fast-paced nature of Singapore’s way of living and hence lack of time further leads to the reluctance of individuals to give the relationship a chance to develop or to give their dates time to show their qualities. A professor from SMU psychology, Prof Straughan, further adds that it is unsurprising that young singles in Singapore feel they are too busy to date, given the culture of long working hours. According to the Singapore Department of Statistics, fewer people had also gotten married in 2019, a 6 per cent drop from the year before, indicating the shifts in mindset about settling down. Such evidence therefore prove that the impacts of the increasing shift towards online dating is highly dependent on the characteristics of the society. In Singapore, I ultimately feel that the convenience and prevalence of dating apps negatively redefined the concept of love and partnership particularly amongst youths.

References

My blogpost reflection this week will be based on Laetitia Wilson’s Interactivity or Interpassivity: a Question of Agency in Digital Play. Wilson explores the blurring of these two concepts, and ultimately argues how we often misconceive interactivity in media when we are actually referring to Interpassivity. Wilson frames her argument by stating that interactivity is a very simplistic term because of how we follow pre-programmed directions according to a predetermined set of codes, indicating a lack of agency of the user. Wilson supports her argument by bringing in the idea of the ‘plurality of shifting selves’, the cyberspace avatar on screen functions as a point of our extended agency, displacing our real space selves. This cyberspace avatar however, is built up on a fantasy, based on unattainable ideals and to make up for what we lack in real life.

In this week’s reading of Cultural field and the habitus, the authors explained and expanded on sociologist Bourdieu’s theoretical ideas of cultural field, cultural capital and habitus. The main argument that the authors posit about Bourdieu is that in exploring these concepts, he is able to contend that the concepts of subjectivism and objectivism should not be seen as separate or independent. Instead, Bourdieu claims that ‘practice is always informed by a sense of agency, but that the possibilities of agency must be understood and contextualized in terms of its relation to the objective structures of a culture’, subjectivism is possible, but individuals are still bounded by cultural contexts that they cannot escape from.

This week’s readings and Bourdieu’s arguments provided me with insight into better understanding digital capital and how one’s access to skills and technology is heavily dependent on their circumstances in life. Digital capital thus could perhaps be seen as an extension of one’s symbolic and cultural capital. On the other hand, some academics argue that media does have the potential to break down class barriers. I argue that although there are instances in which media bridges the gap between different social classes, it ultimately perpetuates one’s capital. A clear example is how academic sites online remain inaccessible to individuals who are not enrolled in any form of educational institution such as universities. Academic sites such as JSTOR, Taylor & Francis and ResearchGate are not tied to any particular institutions and hence should be available for everyone. However, only students who are enrolled in university are able to access and read the academic papers. A more recent example is the newly launched and highly talked about app called Clubhouse. Clubhouse is the hot new social network that allows users to create rooms and talk to one another. A lot of the conversations are between Silicon Valley elites such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. However, the app perpetuates social and capital class because of its purposeful inaccessibility. It is only available on iOS and one must receive an invite to join. Steven Aquino, a contributor to Forbes, puts nicely how Clubhouse perpetuates social class into words, ‘People can ostensibly can “drop in” and chat, but only if you’re a wealthy, white, non-disabled male founder aristocrat’. These two examples clearly show instances in which media perpetuates capital because it thrives on inaccessibility either to make profit, or to retain knowledge among the upper class elites.

References

My blogpost for this week will be focused on Hochschild and Machung’s The Second Shift: Working families and the revolution at home and the concept of women’s work. The authors explained how an individual’s belief, be it the traditional or the egalitarian ideal (gender ideology), would greatly shape how one views the second shift, which can be defined as either ‘I am taken care of’ or ‘I am taking care of someone’. However, Hochschild and Machung ultimately argue that an individual’s gender strategy, is defined not only by one’s gender ideology, but by the complexity of thought, feeling and action, which then truly divided the responsibility of the second shift. As I previously mentioned, one’s gender ideology is what constitutes thought. One’s feeling can be understood as the secondary reaction to what is going on, the example given in the reading was that John felt guilty for feeling angry. Lastly, one’s action is how one copes with emotional conflict. The authors then went on to argue the different ways in which women cope with this second shift, be it by supermoming, cutting back at work, housework, marriage, self, and child. Personally, I believe that Hochschild and Machung explore this concept of the second shift because many marriages still struggle with finding a balance between the capitalist construction of the gender roles.

I found this reading particularly interesting because of its connections to capitalism, and its damaging impacts even in today’s society. The capitalist system defined labor as work that produced profits. Hence, women and housework, even though were part of the capitalist system because it provided the workers and emotional support, were invisible because they did not produce profits for the capitalist system. Women were thus participating in this capitalist system, just as men were, but were not getting rewarded for it. It thus therefore important to unlearn certain unfeminist mindsets that I believe were subconsciously put forth in the reading, for example that doing housework was seen as a negative thing.

In Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content, Jose van Dijck argues that the concept of user agency is not as simple as academics argue. Instead it is a highly nuanced term and should now include the variety of roles undertaken by a user in a media environment where the boundaries between commerce, content and information are currently being redrawn. Van Dijck further argues that users do not have much potential to regain power, let alone ‘change the way the world changes.’ Van Dijck supports his argument by destabilizing the correlation between users of technology and active participants, asserting that participation does not equal to active contribution to UGC sites. Although this argument holds some truth, I argue instead that the creation of new applications on mobile phones and the continued updates of social media applications are increasingly catered towards the contribution of content from users because of the possibility of virality which entices users to post content their own content.

In The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Horkheimer and Adorno argue that in modern capitalist society, culture has been commodified ‘into a crucial medium of ideological domination, and a vital means by which the capitalist order itself has been maintained’. They argue that the advancement of technology has allowed humanity to be focused on the process of hegemony and domination, resulting in standardized forms of content in media, ‘insatiable uniformity’, which ensures profit for companies. The supposed sharp differences in different content only serve to ‘assist in the classification, organization, and identification of consumers.’ Hence, this reading essentially brings forth the notion that technology and media exploits the creative side of culture, and also indicates the passive consumption of mass media from the side of the users.