Psychology and Surveillance Capitalism: The Risk of Pushing Mental Health Apps During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth technologies and mental health apps have been promoted to manage distress in the public and to augment existing mental health services. From a humanistic perspective, the promotion and use of mobile apps raises ethical concerns regarding the autonomy of the person using the app. However, there are other dangers that arise when technological fixes are embraced at a time of crisis. Naomi Klein and Shoshanna Zuboff have recently warned about disaster and surveillance capitalism—using crises to pass legislation that will benefit the rich and deepen inequality, and using anonymized behavioral data for commercial purposes. This analysis reveals that mental health apps may take individuals at their most vulnerable and make them part of a hidden supply chain for the marketplace. We provide a case study of a mental health app that uses digital phenotyping to predict negative mood states. We describe the logic of digital phenotyping and assess the efficacy data on which claims of its validity are based. Drawing from the frameworks of disaster and surveillance capitalism, we also use a humanistic psychology lens to identify the ethical entanglements and the unintended consequences of promoting and using this technology during the COVID-19 pandemic.