Anticipated Counter-Narratives

How Chronically Ill Patients Expect not to use Digital Self-Monitoring

Abstract

Technologies in the making are surrounded by visions and promises of developers about how, when, why and by whom the technology should be used. Building upon scholarship of non-use, this paper aims to identify why chronically ill patients expect not to use digital self-monitoring once it becomes available. To do so, 21 in-depth interviews were conducted. In line with earlier work, use and non- use was mediated by the ‘scripts’ encoded in the technology, personal values and wider social networks. What we add, is that use and non-use also emerges in relation to the disease process itself. For example, while technology developers stress the value of controlling disease, for patients good management also implied letting go of control. By eliciting anticipated counter- narratives while a technology is in development, STS scholars can interrogate the visions and promises articulated by technology developers, and show alternatives.