Health and wellness but at what cost? Technology media justifications for wearable technology use in organizations

Abstract

Wearable technology (WT) use in organizations is accelerating despite ethical concerns about personal privacy, data security, and stress from increased surveillance. Technology media, a key producer of meanings about WT, gives some attention to these issues but they also routinely promote WT as if they are a panacea for employee wellness. We critically analyze 150 media articles to understand how they justify the adoption of WT into organizational life. We contribute by extending previous work on surveillance technology to show how and why WT media discourses use neo-liberal justifications to justify WT implementation. We explore implications including competing health and wellness discourses and make suggestions for further research.

Ethopolitical media: Organizing Assistive Technology, disability and care in the platform society

“…We find these ideas embedded and reproduced in media narratives – that produce certain images of health and disability (Ellis et al, 2020; Houston, 2019; Plester et al, 2024; Shew, 2023) – and in media operations, that foster certain practices of self-care (Hagood, 2019; Ochsner et al, 2022; Sterne, 2021). Media narratives of enhancement, in fact, are typical of AI-based AT.Shew (2023) highlights the latent ableism (that she calls “technoableism”) in these narratives, as they represent AT as a solution to “overcome disability.” In doing so, these narratives turn assistance for disability into an implicit preference for ability that disavows disability’s dignity.…”

“…We find these ideas embedded and reproduced in media narratives -that produce certain images of health and disability (Ellis et al, 2020;Houston, 2019;Plester et al, 2024;Shew, 2023) -and in media operations, that foster certain practices of self-care (Hagood, 2019;Ochsner et al, 2022;Sterne, 2021). Media narratives of enhancement, in fact, are typical of AI-based AT.…”

“…Recalling Martin’s (2019: 1) assumption that “media organize,” that is “media construct patterns and relationships that pose the question of order,” we argue that AT are not mere aids but rather media systems that organize disability. With this, we mean that AT contribute to defining, accounting for and managing disability both through media representations that produce images of disability and health (Ellis et al, 2020; Houston, 2019; Jerreat-Poole, 2023; Plester et al, 2024; Shew, 2023), and through material practices of technologically-mediated accounting and self-care (Hagood, 2019; Hesmondalgh, 2017; Ochsner et al, 2022; Sterne, 2021). In the next sections, we will show how AT organize disability in welfare systems and the transformations occurring with the arrival of big tech in the field.…”

Hegemonic Surveillance at Work: Fabricating the cyberized, totalized and thespianized employee

“…Particularly in the United States, where companies have been keen for a considerable period to reduce their health liabilities (Pfeffer, 2018), the monitoring of employee lifestyles in this way is alluring (Plester et al, 2022). There are examples of organizations that monitor how much employees exercise, what they eat and drink, and, in some cases, even how much they sleep (Elmholdt et al, 2021;Olson, 2014).…”

Backfire effects of performance quantification on stress and disidentification: The role of metadehumanization in organizations, sport, and social networks

“…One important characteristic of contemporary life is that it is increasingly approached in numerical terms and by means of mathematical and statistical models (Plester et al., 2022). Whether we think of domains as diverse as work, health, science, or internet, numbers are everywhere and all aspects of human activity and performance have become quantifiable.…”