Women’s embodied experiences of using wearable digital self-tracking health technology: A review of the qualitative research literature

Abstract

In this review we aimed to identify and synthesize the existing qualitative research literature on women's experiences of using wearable digital self-tracking health technology, and analytically explore the lived through and embodied aspects of self-tracking in the first-person accounts presented in this literature. Thirteen empirical studies conducted in Australia, USA, Canada, Denmark, Finland and Germany, and published within the time period 2014 to 2019, were identified through systematic searches in relevant databases, and analyzed using a method of interpretive metasynthesis. Our analysis suggests that women experienced gaining access to bodily information that was otherwise experienced as hidden through using a wearable device, and that experiencing feelings was integral to their self-tracking practices and experiences. We thus identified two core themes across the included studies: Embodying the knowing self and Embodying strong feelings. Our review contributes to the existing literature by outlining and describing an emerging body of research across different health related disciplines, and makes a theoretical contribution by highlighting the need to minimize emotional labor and to provide the opportunity for embodying agency in the context of the selftracking activities of patients and consumers. In addition we suggests methodological ways forward in producing detailed and nuanced knowledge about the practices and implications of women's use of digital self-tracking health technology.

Sex-specific factors associated with acceptance of smartwatches among urban older adults: the Itabashi longitudinal study on aging

“…Women tend to use wearable devices more regularly than men to monitor their health-related information ( 36 ). Moreover, even those who do not own wearable devices have a notable interest in these devices as viable tools for improving physical and mental health ( 9 ).…”

Datafied female health: Sociotechnical imaginaries of femtech in Danish public discourse

“…But this very language also reproduces an understanding of female intimacies as secretive, mysterious, and, significantly, conquerable. Here, the experiences of individual women, as documented in existing research (Grenfell et al, 2020;Hamper, 2020;Del Busso et al, 2022;Petersen, 2022), is replicated at the societal-discursive level.…”

“…While Article: Datafied female health Dahlman, Just, Pedersen, Lantz & Kristiansen femtech is gaining momentum within the industry, academic interest is only slowly turning from the elucidation of persistent inequalities concerning women's reproductive health (Marshall, 2002;Thompson, 2005) and/or technologically re-enforced biases (Perez, 2019;Wachther-Boettcher, 2018) towards scrutiny of the various dimensions of femtech innovation. Existing studies tend to focus rather narrowly on women's experiences of fertility self-tracking (Grenfell et al, 2020;Hamper, 2020;Del Busso et al, 2022;Petersen et al, 2022). Here, self-tracking is generally perceived as a form of biopower (Sanders, 2017), and period tracking, in particular, as body politics (Della Bianco, 2021).…”

When chronicity meets cyclicity: The cultivation of embodied knowledge and selfhood by cis-gender women with cystic fibrosis

“…Lupton and her colleagues, Maslen and Harris, have argued that as an “extra somatic resource” ( Latour, 2004 ), digital technologies engage the senses to contribute to individuals’ heightened awareness of, and new knowledge about, the materiality, sociality, and temporality of their bodies ( Harris, 2021 ; Lupton, 2017 ; Maslen, 2017 ). This scholarship, along with newer work, has focused on how sensory knowing through digital tracking has enabled women to confirm the efficacy of existing strategies or tailor new, more effective ones to maximize their self-efficacy and quality of life ( Algera, 2022 ; Del Busso et al, 2022 ; Lupton & Maslen, 2018 , 2019a , 2019b ). Given the widespread availability of digital devices and the feasibility of tailoring apps to specific patient populations ( Adam, Bond, Burton, de Bruin, & Murchie, 2020 ; Cummings et al, 2011 ; Ponder et al, 2020 ), the CF-menstrual tracking case provides further evidence about how people with chronic or genetic diseases cultivate embodied knowledge through digital tracking.…”