Monitoring gadget: for some wellness, for others Orwell culture

It wasn’t the new iPhones or the other fancy devices that Apple unveiled the week before last that got the company the most attention. But the announcement that the gadgets may soon be able to diagnose depression, anxiety disorders, autism or signs of incipient dementia.

It’s not entirely new. Regardless of whether Amazon, Google, Microsoft or Facebook: Almost every tech company has worked on projects to recognize the emotional state of its users or has already brought hardware onto the market for this purpose. Most recently, it was Amazon that published a bracelet called Halo, which is intended to give its wearers deeper insights into their own sensitivities. The only difference is the shape of these devices: sometimes it is a watch, sometimes an amulet or a ring. And the analyzes are becoming more and more intimate. In the beginning, only pulse, temperature and perhaps blood pressure were measured, but these data are now being interpreted more and more frequently.

So soon Apple too. The company is trying to give the appearance of scientificity through its cooperation with the University of California and promises that it will process all data on the devices themselves, and that there will be no exchange with the Apple servers. It can be assumed that staunch fans of the company will be happy to grab it as soon as the technology is on the market.

Luxury surveillance is what the American algorithm critic Chris Gilliard calls this phenomenon. While some pay hundreds of euros to be monitored and feel good about it, for others it is an instrument of control that they would probably pay hundreds of euros to get rid of – but do not have that choice at all.

Ultimately, an Apple Watch is nothing more than an electronic ankle cuff

Amazon has a smart surveillance camera called the Ring that is supplied by drivers who are filmed by AI-powered surveillance cameras while they work. In another example, according to Gilliard, an Apple Watch essentially only distinguishes the shape from an electronic ankle cuff. The functionality is similar, and the purpose of the devices is the same: to extract data that is then processed to monitor or predict the behavior of their wearers.

Only certain people can afford luxury surveillance, but it’s not necessarily a question of money: in general, luxury surveillance consumers see themselves as powerful and sovereign, and perhaps even immune to unwanted surveillance and control. For them, self-quantification and health tracking are not a means of discipline or coercion, but a kind of care or even empowerment. In addition to the availability of capital, other questions also determine the perspective: According to Chris Gilliard, it is above all already marginalized groups of the population who suffer from the use of what others are waiting for in long lines in front of the Apple stores.

What does this Janus-faced technology say about our society? The hardware is only a very special, but also enormously obvious, evidence of a social imbalance: What digital wellness means for one person looks like Orwell to another.

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