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Short-circuiting biology: Digital phenotypes, digital biomarkers, and shifting gazes in psychiatry

Mulinari, Shai LU (2023) In Big Data and Society
Abstract
Digital phenotyping is a rapidly growing research field promising to transform how psychiatry measures, classifies, predicts, and explains human behavior. This article advances the social-scientific examination of digital phenotyping’s epistemology and knowledge claims. Drawing on the notion of a “neuromolecular gaze” in psychiatry since the 1960s, it suggests that digital phenotyping concerns a new psychiatric gaze – the “digital gaze”. Rather than privileging neuromolecular explanations, the digital gaze privileges the “deep” physiological, behavioral, and social “truths” afforded by digital technologies and big data. The article interrogates two concepts directing the digital gaze: “digital phenotype” and “digital biomarkers”. Both... (More)
Digital phenotyping is a rapidly growing research field promising to transform how psychiatry measures, classifies, predicts, and explains human behavior. This article advances the social-scientific examination of digital phenotyping’s epistemology and knowledge claims. Drawing on the notion of a “neuromolecular gaze” in psychiatry since the 1960s, it suggests that digital phenotyping concerns a new psychiatric gaze – the “digital gaze”. Rather than privileging neuromolecular explanations, the digital gaze privileges the “deep” physiological, behavioral, and social “truths” afforded by digital technologies and big data. The article interrogates two concepts directing the digital gaze: “digital phenotype” and “digital biomarkers”. Both concepts make explicit an epistemic link between “the digital” and “the biological”. The article examines the soundness and construction of this link to, first, offer a “reality check” of digital phenotyping’s claims and, second, more clearly delineate and demarcate the digital gaze. It argues there is evidence of significant mis- and overstatements about digital phenotyping’s basis in biology, including in much-hyped psychiatric digital biomarker research. Rather than driving the biologization of digital traces, as some have suggested, digital mental health phenotyping so far seems mainly concerned with physiological, behavioral, and social processes that can be surveilled by means of digital devices. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Big Data and Society
pages
13 pages
publisher
SAGE Publications
external identifiers
  • scopus:85146263742
ISSN
2053-9517
DOI
10.1177/20539517221145680
project
The New Scientific Revolution? AI and Big Data in Biomedicine
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
cec20ef5-09fc-4f4b-be97-62455c90ff17
date added to LUP
2022-11-03 12:58:49
date last changed
2023-02-15 11:19:50
@article{cec20ef5-09fc-4f4b-be97-62455c90ff17,
  abstract     = {{Digital phenotyping is a rapidly growing research field promising to transform how psychiatry measures, classifies, predicts, and explains human behavior. This article advances the social-scientific examination of digital phenotyping’s epistemology and knowledge claims. Drawing on the notion of a “neuromolecular gaze” in psychiatry since the 1960s, it suggests that digital phenotyping concerns a new psychiatric gaze – the “digital gaze”. Rather than privileging neuromolecular explanations, the digital gaze privileges the “deep” physiological, behavioral, and social “truths” afforded by digital technologies and big data. The article interrogates two concepts directing the digital gaze: “digital phenotype” and “digital biomarkers”. Both concepts make explicit an epistemic link between “the digital” and “the biological”. The article examines the soundness and construction of this link to, first, offer a “reality check” of digital phenotyping’s claims and, second, more clearly delineate and demarcate the digital gaze. It argues there is evidence of significant mis- and overstatements about digital phenotyping’s basis in biology, including in much-hyped psychiatric digital biomarker research. Rather than driving the biologization of digital traces, as some have suggested, digital mental health phenotyping so far seems mainly concerned with physiological, behavioral, and social processes that can be surveilled by means of digital devices.}},
  author       = {{Mulinari, Shai}},
  issn         = {{2053-9517}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  publisher    = {{SAGE Publications}},
  series       = {{Big Data and Society}},
  title        = {{Short-circuiting biology: Digital phenotypes, digital biomarkers, and shifting gazes in psychiatry}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/134592292/Mulinari_Digital_Gaze.pdf}},
  doi          = {{10.1177/20539517221145680}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}