The Self-Surveillance Failures of Wearable Communication

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11372254
AutoresM Zimdars (0000-0001-8580-3133, Communication and Media, Merrimack College, North Andover, Massachusetts, United States, autor correspondente)
Ano2021
Volume45
Fascículo1
Páginas24-44
Data de publicação2021-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Communication Inquiry (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0196-8599 • E-ISSN: 1552-4612
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0196859920977113
OpenAlexW3111391550
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas25

By discursively analyzing blogs and popular press articles written by people who discontinued using Fitbit, this article reveals the incongruities between the tracking of our bodily information, the communication of that bodily information via wearables, and the promises of changing of users’ attitudes and behaviors with how wearables are actually used in practice. The discourses of discontinuance in this analysis also reveal how former Fitbit engenders feelings of disconnection and may affect users in detrimental ways. As a result, and despite the predominant framing and conceptualization of wearables as “motivating,” “empowering,” and “useful” (self)surveillance tools, I argue that Fitbit is an example of a failure both of self-surveillance and of wearable communication for helping users achieve their health and fitness goals. Finally, I argue that we need to start thinking about wearable communication like other forms of communication that are inherently inconsistent and contradictory, and that can be accepted, negotiated, or rejected by users. Instead of focusing on the disciplinary or controlling potentials of wearables as a form of self-surveillance, this paper considers the resistance and negotiations inherent in the (dis)use of wearables, and demonstrates the necessity of exploring both wearables and surveillance itself in relation to fundamental understandings of communication

Conceptualization · Feeling · Framing (construction · Internet privacy · Negotiation · Sociology · Wearable computer · Wearable technology · Computer Science · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection · Psychology · Social Psychology · Technology Use by Older Adults

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