Digital health – a new medical cosmology? The case of 23andMe online genetic testing platform

Abstract

This article argues that commercial digital health platforms and devices commodify participatory features of the digital creating a new medical cosmology. Drawing on sociology on medical cosmologies, research on digital media and marketing and an analysis of the 23andMe online genetic testing platform, I identify three features of this cosmology. First, digital health seeks to foment 'flow' or enjoyable, continuous immersion in health. Second, digital health configures its consumers as 'co-creators' of health data and knowledge together with companies and other consumers. Third, digital health frames medical knowledge as tentative, up for revision and scepticism by expert and lay science. The way in which digital health configures consumers as immersed, creative and sceptical gives it an open-ended and participatory air. However, the conceptual discussion and the analysis of the 23andMe platform highlight that these features represent commercial capture of the lifeworld, even if they appear radical against classical medical cosmologies.

Understanding digital health: Productive tensions at the intersection of sociology of health and science and technology studies

“…() have done in relation to HIV care. Other emerging areas of digital health that have clear implications for spatiotemporalities include projections of pandemics (Opitz ), embryonic evolution (van de Wiel, this collection) or genetic predictions for future health (Prainsack , Saukko ).…”

“…Future research may explore how lay people and professionals work with these new spatiotemporalities, as Lomborg et al (2018) have done in relation to self-tracking and Marent et al (2018) have done in relation to HIV care. Other emerging areas of digital health that have clear implications for spatiotemporalities include projections of pandemics (Opitz 2017), embryonic evolution (van de Wiel, this collection) or genetic predictions for future health (Prainsack 2017, Saukko 2018.…”

Marketing Experimental Stem Cell Therapies in the UK: Biomedical Lifestyle Products and the Promise of Regenerative Medicine in the Digital Era

“…Digital technologies are changing how patients and consumers use, access and interpret medical information, and how they communicate about and purchase healthcare services and products (Lupton, 2013;Sosnowy, 2014;Saukko, 2018). Digital media have exponentially expanded individuals' access to both conventional and alternative information about medicine and health.…”

“…These suggest that actors outside the academy and the medical profession, including patients and consumers, occupy increasingly active roles in the production and interpretation of scientific and health knowledge. They can also construct alternative understandings of their own health (Neff and Nafus, 2016;Saukko, 2018).…”

“…This can in turn be commodified by first selling the profiles to commercial and advertising businesses and then marketing them back to consumers via user-targeted advertising (Mager, 2012). Relatedly, the parameters of the digital environments in which DTC medicine operates facilitate the commodification of patients' and consumers' interests and hopes (Saukko, 2018) including around experimental stem cell interventions (Petersen and Seear, 2011).…”