Fotopoulou, Aristea and O'Riordan, Kate (2016) Training to self-care: fitness tracking, biopedagogy and the healthy consumer. Health Sociology Review, 26 (1). pp. 54-68. ISSN 1446-1242

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Abstract

In this article, we provide an account of Fitbit, a wearable sensor device, using two complementary analytical approaches: auto-ethnography and media analysis. Drawing on the concept of biopedagogy, which describes the processes of learning and training bodies how to live, we focus on how users learn to self-care with wearable technologies through a series of micropractices that involve processes of mediation and the sharing of their own data via social networking. Our discussion is oriented towards four areas of analysis: data subjectivity and sociality; making meaning; time and productivity and brand identity. We articulate how these micropractices of knowing one’s body regulate the contemporary ‘fit’ and healthy subject, and mediate expertise about health, behaviour and data subjectivity.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	digital health, Fitbit, imaginaries, quantified self, data, biopedagogy, subjectivity
Schools and Departments:	School of Media, Film and Music > Media and Film
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Depositing User:	Kate O'Riordan
Date Deposited:	15 Mar 2016 12:21
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2019 15:49
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/60044

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