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The Transcendental Quality of Digital Health and Social Media

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Phenomenology of Bioethics: Technoethics and Lived-Experience

Part of the book series: The International Library of Bioethics ((ILB,volume 84))

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Abstract

In this paper we will be discussing the ethical risks of the transcendental quality of virtual spaces as they apply to digital health, especially in relation to new attempts to construct a “social mediome.” As we will discuss in the following section, phenomenology has raised criticisms against the context-lessness and ethical opacity of technology. The creation of a social mediome seems to come as an answer to this criticism as it creates a context that gives voice and flesh to human beings within their virtual lives. Yet, as we will discuss in this paper, the transcendental quality of this social mediome might involve the risk of normalizing health in a way that would prevent individuals from achieving well-being according to the meaning that they personally attribute to it.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a more extended definition of transcendental and its ethical implications see Ferrarello (De Gruyter, forthcoming).

  2. 2.

    We use this expression as it appeared in the article: Asch et al. (2015).

  3. 3.

    In this paper we use ‘technology’ as mechanical reproduction (τέχνη) as it was interpreted by Walter Benjamin (1935).

  4. 4.

    See: M. Heidegger, 1977, The question concerning technology and other essays, New York: Harper Torchbooks; M. Heim, 1993, The metaphysics of virtual reality, New York: Oxford University Press; D. Ihde, 1990, Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to earth, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press; Don Idhe, 2002, Bodies in technology, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; B. Stiegler, 1998, Technics and time, 1: The Fault of epimetheus, Stanford: Stanford University Press; H.L. Dreyfus, 1999, “Anonymity versus commitment: The dangers of education on the internet,” Ethics and Information Technology 1 (1): 15–20.

  5. 5.

    Department of Health, 2012, The power of information. Putting all of us in control of the health and care information we need. Retrieved from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130802094648/https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/134336/dh_134205.pdf.pdf [Accessed on: 25/11/16].

  6. 6.

    Retrieved from https://centerfordigitalhealth.upenn.edu/social-mediome.

  7. 7.

    It remains unclear the extent to which these data can be used to track human behaviors. See P.A. Clark, K. Capuzzi, and J. Harrison, “Telemedicine: Medical, legal and ethical perspectives,” Medical Science Monitor 16, no. 12 (2010): 261–272; D.W. Bates, A. Landman, and D. M. Levine, “Health apps and health policy: What is needed?” Journal of the American Medical Association 320, no. 19 (2018): 1976.

  8. 8.

    Although we are focusing in this chapter on the relation between anxiety and social media, the concerns can go beyond this point. See, for example, Terrasse et al. (2019), online: “the impact of social networking sites on the doctor‐patient relationship, the development of e‐health platforms to deliver care, the use of online data and algorithms to inform health research, and the broader public health consequences of widespread social media use. In doing so, we review previous discussions of these topics and emphasize the need for bioethics to focus more deeply on the ways online technology platforms are designed and implemented. We argue that bioethicists should turn their attention to the ways in which consumer engagement, bias, and profit maximization shape online content and, consequently, human behavior and health”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. California State University (East Bay), Hayward, CA, USA

    Susi Ferrarello & Michael Agostinelli, Jr.

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  1. Susi Ferrarello
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  2. Michael Agostinelli, Jr.
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Correspondence to Susi Ferrarello .

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  1. C​alifornia State University, Hayward, CA, USA

    Susi Ferrarello

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Ferrarello, S., Agostinelli, Jr., M. (2021). The Transcendental Quality of Digital Health and Social Media. In: Ferrarello, S. (eds) Phenomenology of Bioethics: Technoethics and Lived-Experience. The International Library of Bioethics, vol 84. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65613-3_7

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