Psychology and Surveillance Capitalism: The Risk of Pushing Mental Health Apps During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth technologies and mental health apps have been promoted to manage distress in the public and to augment existing mental health services. From a humanistic perspective, the promotion and use of mobile apps raises ethical concerns regarding the autonomy of the person using the app. However, there are other dangers that arise when technological fixes are embraced at a time of crisis. Naomi Klein and Shoshanna Zuboff have recently warned about disaster and surveillance capitalism—using crises to pass legislation that will benefit the rich and deepen inequality, and using anonymized behavioral data for commercial purposes. This analysis reveals that mental health apps may take individuals at their most vulnerable and make them part of a hidden supply chain for the marketplace. We provide a case study of a mental health app that uses digital phenotyping to predict negative mood states. We describe the logic of digital phenotyping and assess the efficacy data on which claims of its validity are based. Drawing from the frameworks of disaster and surveillance capitalism, we also use a humanistic psychology lens to identify the ethical entanglements and the unintended consequences of promoting and using this technology during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Individualized Intervention to Support Mental Health Recovery Through Implementation of Digital Tools into Clinical Care: Feasibility Study

“…In addition to implementation challenges, the accumulating evidence of the potential benefits of digital tools to support mental health is counterbalanced by concerns regarding potential harms. Researchers have identified mental health apps that contain information inconsistent with current practice guidelines (Nicholas et al 2015 ) and others have raised concerns regarding the validity of evidence used to support claims of efficacy in mental health apps (Cosgrove et al 2020 ). Particularly concerning, some apps have been found to contain potentially harmful information (Larsen et al 2016 ).…”

“…Particularly concerning, some apps have been found to contain potentially harmful information (Larsen et al 2016 ). In addition, scholars have identified ethical questions raised by the turn toward digital technologies, including privacy of data shared with third-parties as well as potential commodification of vulnerable populations (Cosgrove et al 2020 ; Zuboff 2019 ).…”

Threats to Global Mental Health From Unregulated Digital Phenotyping and Neuromarketing: Recommendations for COVID-19 Era and Beyond

“…Apart from sensors, other minor aspects of smartphones such as the average number of daily calls and text messages, average time spending on social media and entertainment applications, and the average time of web browsing have been shown to be able to detect and predict the severity of depression with high accuracy (23). However, alongside the competitive advantage of offering appropriate customized services, digital phenotyping intrinsically impacts what it is to be a human person and potentially undermines human-human interaction as emanating from a therapeutic/clinical consultation where two individuals (at times more) connect deeply to address highly intricate and complex problems (24)(25)(26)(27).…”

Mechanisms for providing cybersecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives for Ukraine

“…Researchers pay attention to the ethical aspect of the problem (Cosgrove et al, 2020). It is a question of the probable restriction of the autonomy of users of such mobile applications.…”