Technology and authenticity: patienthood in a technological world

This paper concerns the ways in which we can be authentic in a technological world. To respond to this question we draw on the work of Martin Heidegger and specifically on his essay ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ and on his conceptualisation of authenticity, as outlined in ‘Being and Time’. We show that being authentic could be a response to the dangers the essence of technology poses. We contextualize our question in the context of contemporary health discourse. According to recent health policy, technology plays a pivotal role in allowing patients to make choices and manage their health. We argue that empowerment does not give much opportunity to be authentic but confuses the ability to make choice with the potential of becoming free and thus hides the ‘enframing’ effects of technology. We show how a technological understanding of patienthood has turned ‘patients’ into ‘data’ and ‘health’ into ‘information technology’, we demonstrate why technology is not neutral given its exclusionary effects and then we go on to discuss in what ways patients who are excluded from this technological world could constitute the saving power that could make health more humanistic and inclusive.