Appified care? Reflections towards a cultural and individual understanding of intimate surveillance across the lifespan in the age of mobile technologies

Abstract

Our daily lives have become flooded with mobile monitoring technologies that promise to provide care to ourselves and to our close relationships (Lupton et al., 2016). From applications tracking fertility and monitoring infants’ oxygen levels to internet-connected wearables for the elderly, mobile media have had a profound impact on how intimate surveillance seemingly engrained itself as a normalized and even integral component of our relationships (Leaver, 2017; Levy, 2019). Originally, intimate surveillance refers to “the purposeful and routinely well-intentioned surveillance of young people” (Leaver, 2015, p. 153). Its emphasis on care, however, provides a useful perspective to extend this mobile communication practice to the various other identities and socio-cultural roles that we occupy throughout the lifespan (Andrejevic et al., 2021).

The notion of intimate surveillance draws attention to how the “culture of surveillance”, enabled by mobile technologies as well as by neoliberal ideals of individual responsibilization, manifests itself in citizens’ everyday practices (Johnson, 2014; Lyon, 2018; Marciano, 2021). While mobile technologies are presented as essential tools to ensure health and wellbeing, being surveilled can have detrimental consequences for one’s autonomy, identity, privacy, and safety (Hartmann et al., 2023; Mortenson et al., 2013). These dynamics are oftentimes complex as research shows that mobile enabled surveillance does not engender clear and direct outcomes (Kalms, 2017; Pei & Chib, 2021). Rather, the impact of mobile-enabled surveillance should be understood as situated within the particular socio-cultural context of the surveilled individual as well as of those that are surveilling (e.g. Mols et al., 2023; Saker et al., 2024, Kennedy & Wilson 2020). To investigate these complex dynamics, this workshop focuses on how mobile-enabled intimate surveillance shapes and is shaped by how we imagine, experience and give meaning to various social roles throughout the lifespan.

The workshop aims to cultivate awareness regarding the presence of mobile-enabled intimate surveillance throughout the various life stages. Participants will take on the role of the surveilled and contemplate the impact of surveillance on individuals across their lifespan. Special attention will be directed towards aspects of vulnerability. By doing so, we gain insights into the nuances of each type of surveillance and the identities of those under surveillance. Further attention will be given to cultural differences (e.g. cultural norms on parenthood). Cultural differences provide excellent starting points to analyze surveillance across the lifespan and to provide depth to each discussion.

Finally, participants will be asked to critically reflect on how dominant neoliberal perspectives of care and the marketing of mobile monitoring technologies appeal to individual responsibilization. We conclude by contemplating the role of mobile-enabled surveillance in aiding and undermining human rights.