Wearable Tech and the Casualization of Biometric Surveillance in Wellness Culture
Wearable Tech and the Casualization of Biometric Surveillance in Wellness Culture

Summary/Abstract: This paper explores manifestations of ableism in online wellness and wearables tech cultures, and in turn, criticizes the idea that technology is a quick remedy to physical debility. It highlights two distinct but related Internet cultures: those of nondisabled people who attempt to achieve wellness by using wearable, biometric devices and, alternatively, those consisting of the disabled and chronically ill people who must use biotechnologies to survive. I assert that much of the wearable tech nondisabled people become infatuated with obscures socioeconomic discrepancies in labor time, personal time, and wealth that contribute to reduced states of wellness in the first place. In contrast to discourses around biohacking, I focus on realistic depictions of the multivariantforms of pride and frustration that constitute what disability scholars refer to as ‘cyborg life.’ I contend that these representations offer insight into disabled culture that is missing in popular, nondisabled representations of technology, and as such challenge the notion that more and better technology is the answer to healthy, equitable futures.

• Details
• Contents