Author(s):
- Julie Passanante Elman
Abstract:
By examining advertisements, technological design, workplace wellness programs, and legal discourses involving Fitbit activity trackers, this article examines how cultural ideas about disability infuse the representation, use, study, and implementation of wearable technology. Although Fitbit features wheelchair users prominently in advertising, Fitbit only measures movements in steps, and its use in workplace wellness programs has been accompanied by legal concerns about wellness programs’ potential weakening of workplace protections afforded to US workers by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). This article shows that inspirational and tragic representations of disability work to depoliticize wearable technology and argues that disability needs to be a more central category of analysis for cultural studies and sociological studies of the cultural impacts of fitness tracking and wellness culture.
Document:
https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818760312
References:
Abelson, R (2016) AARP sues over rules for wellness programs. The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/business/employee-wellness-programs-prompt-aarp-lawsuit.html?_r=0 (accessed 22 September 2017).
Alper, M (2017) Giving Voice: Mobile Communication, Disability, and Inequality. Amherst, MA: MIT Press.
Begley, S (2015) Coming soon to a workplace near you: “Wellness or else.” Reuters. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-wellness-insight/coming-soon-to-a-workplace-near-you-wellness-or-else-idUSKBN0KM17C20150113 (accessed September 2017).
Begley, S (2017) House republicans would let employers demand workers’ genetic test results. STAT. Available at: https://www.statnews.com/2017/03/10/workplace-wellness-genetic-testing/ (accessed September 2017).
Brownlee, J (2017) How Apple made the watch work for wheelchair users—Where business and design collide. Available at: https://www.fastcodesign.com/3061283/how-apple-made-the-watch-work-for-wheelchair-users (accessed September 2017).
Butler-Wall, K (2015) Risky measures: digital technologies and the governance of child obesity. Women’s Studies Quarterly 43(1–2): 228–245.
Clare, E (1999) Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation. Boston, MA: South End Press.
Clare, E (2017) Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Community.fitbit.com (2017) Using Fitbit in a wheelchair. Available at: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Flex/Using-Fitbit-in-a-wheelchair/td-p/2115100?nobounce (accessed September 2017).
Comstock, J (2015) Fitbit becomes HIPAA-compliant, signs Target, unveils large-scale challenge feature. Available at: http://www.mobihealthnews.com/46824/fitbit-becomes-hipaa-compliant-signs-target-unveils-large-scale-challenge-feature (accessed September 2017).
Cramer, JM (2009) Critical discourse analysis. In: Littlejohn, SW, Foss, KA (eds) Encyclopedia of Communication Theory. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, pp. 220–223.
Ellcessor, E (2016) Restricted Access: Media, Disability, and the Politics of Participation. New York: NYU Press.
Ellcessor, E, Kirkpatrick, B (2017) Disability Media Studies. New York: NYU Press.
Ellis, K, Kent, M (2017) Disability and Social Media: Global Perspectives. London: Routledge.
Elman, JP (2014) Chronic Youth: Disability, Sexuality, and U.S. Media Cultures of Rehabilitation. New York: NYU Press.
Evenson, KR, Goto, MM, Furberg, RD (2015) Systematic review of the validity and reliability of consumer-wearable activity trackers. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. Available at: https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-015-0314-1 (accessed September 2017).
Garland-Thomson, R (1997) Extraordinary Bodies. New York: Columbia University Press.
Gilmore, J (2016) Everywear: the quantified self and wearable fitness technologies. New Media & Society 18(11): 2524–2539.
Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI
Goggin, G (2016) Disability and mobilities: evening up social futures. Mobilities 11(4): 533–541.
Goode, A, Hall, KS, Batch, BC. (2016) The impact of interventions that integrate accelerometers on physical activity and weight loss: a systematic review. Annals of Behavioral Medicine 51(1): 79–93.
Gouge, C, Jones, J (2016) Wearable rhetorics: bodies, cities, collectives. Rhetorical Studies Quarterly 46(3): 199–283.
Hamraie, A (2012) Universal design research as a new materialist practice. Disability Studies Quarterly 32(4). Available at: http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3246/3185.
Hamraie, A (2017) Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Haraway, D (1991) Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. New York: Routledge.
Hayles, N (2010 [1999]) How We Became Posthuman. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Jain, S (1999) The prosthetic imagination: enabling and disabling the prosthesis trope. Science, Technology, & Human Values 24(1): 31–54.
Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI
Jakicic, J, Davis, KK, Rogers, RJ. (2016) Effect of wearable technology combined with a lifestyle intervention on long-term weight loss. Journal of the American Medical Association 316(11): 1161–1171.
Google Scholar | Medline | ISI
Kafer, A (2013) Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Kirkland, A (2008) Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood. New York: New York University Press.
Lamkin, P (2016) Wearable tech market to be worth $34 billion by 2020. Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paullamkin/2016/02/17/wearable-tech-market-to-be-worth-34-billion-by-2020/#f94d0313cb55 (accessed January 2018).
Langan, C (2001) Mobility disability. Public Culture 13(3): 459–484.
Lebesco, K (2003) Revolting Bodies: The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Locklear, M (2017) Fitbit’s Ionic smartwatch will help diabetics track glucose levels. Engadget. Available at: https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/07/fitbit-ionic-smartwatch-help-diabetics-track-glucose/ (accessed September 2017).
Lunney, A, Cunningham, NR, Eastin, MS (2016) Wearable fitness technology: a structural investigation into acceptance and perceived fitness outcomes. Computers in Human Behavior 65: 114–120.
Lupton, D (2016) The Quantified Self. New York: Polity.
McRuer, R (2006) Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York: New York University Press.
McRuer, R (2018) Crip Times: Disability, Globalization, and Resistance. New York: New York University Press.
Mauldin, L (2014) On dialogue: disability studies and science & technology studies. Somatosphere. Available at: http://somatosphere.net/2014/05/on-dialogue-disability-studies-and-science-technology-studies.html (accessed September 2017).
Michaels, KE (2016) Flambeau Inc. wellness program testing falls within ADA safe harbor. Available at: https://www.mwe.com/en/thought-leadership/publications/2016/01/flambeau (accessed September 2017).
Mitchell, D, Snyder, S (2006) Cultural Locations of Disability. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Mole, B (2016) Wellness programs strong-arm employees into giving up health info, suit says. Ars Technica UK. Available at: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/10/wellness-programs-strong-arm-employees-into-giving-up-health-info-suit-says/ (accessed September 2017).
Molteni, M (2017) Bored with your Fitbit? These cancer researchers aren’t. Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/bored-with-your-fitbit-these-cancer-researchers-arent/ (accessed September 2017).
Mulvaney, E (2017) EEOC warns of “chaos” if workplace wellness rules are vacated. The National Law Journal. Available at: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202797774314/EEOC-Warns-of-Chaos-If-Workplace-Wellness-Rules-Are-Vacated?slreturn=20170823140525
Naslund, JA, Aschbrenner, KA, Scherer, EA. (2016) Wearable devices and mobile technologies for supporting behavioral weight loss among people with serious mental illness. Psychiatry Research 244: 139–144.
Neff, G, Nafus, D (2016) Self-Tracking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nelson, EC, Verhagen, T, Noordzij, ML (2016) Health empowerment through activity trackers: an empirical smart wristband study. Computers in Human Behavior 62: 364–374.
Promis, D, Erevelles, N, Matthews, J (2001) Reconceptualizing inclusion: the politics of university sports and recreation programs for students with mobility impairments. Sociology of Sport 18(1): 37–50.
Pullin, G (2011) Design Meets Disability. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Rose, N (2006) The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sedaris, D (2014) Stepping out: living the Fitbit life. The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/30/stepping-out-3 (accessed August 2014).
Sheller, M (2015) Uneven mobility futures. Mobilities 11(1): 15–31.
Somashekar, S (2016) The disturbing reason some African American patients may be undertreated for pain. The Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/04/04/do-blacks-feel-less-pain-than-whites-their-doctors-may-think-so/?utm_term=.4919911e939b (accessed May 2017).
Teston, C (2016) Rhetoric, precarity, and mHealth technologies. Rhetoric Society Quarterly 46(3): 251–268.
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2016) EEOC issues final rules on employer wellness programs. Available at: https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/5-16-16.cfm (accessed 15 September 2017).
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2017) Wisconsin employer resolves EEOC case involving wellness program and retaliation. Available at: https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/4-5-17a.cfm (accessed 15 September 2017).
Virilio, P (1997) Open Sky. New York: Verso.
Weber, L (2014) Wellness programs get a health check. The Wall Street Journal. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/wellness-programs-get-a-health-check-1412725776 (accessed September 2014).
Weiman, D (2016) EEOC versus Honeywell International. Huffington Post. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/darryl-s-weiman-md-jd/eeoc-versus-honeywell-int_b_12385442.html (accessed 22 September 2017).
Whitson, JR (2013) Gaming the quantified self. Surveillance and Society 11(1–2): 163–176.
YouTube (2014) Find Your Fit—2014. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0qVi_nF6y8 (accessed 25 September 2017).
YouTube (2015) Lovefit—2015. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU5aEh9TyAw (accessed 25 September 2017).
YouTube (2016) Gen-pep—Pep Talk by Stephen Hawking. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A92o9O4FZ7Y&t=1s (accessed 13 February 2017).