A138. Yates, S. J., Townsend, L., Whitty, M., Rice, R. E., & Carmi, E. (2020). Chapter 3. ESRC Review: Health and well-being. In S. J. Yates & R. E. Rice (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of digital technology and society (pp. 57-78). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
This chapter
describes the analyses and
results for the ESRC Domain of Health and Well-Being, guided by a
three-part
main question: “whether technology makes us healthier, better educated,
and
more productive.” It first provides an initial overview of the major
insights
from the literature review and analysis, the Delphi surveys, and
workshop
discussions about the relevant range of the concepts of health and
well-being
in a digital age. The resulting focus is early on mostly about the
technology,
but later emphasizes users, health, and research. Eight main
topics emerged, including
Healthcare, Measures and measurement, Mobile and smartphone devices,
Social
support, and Weight loss. The analyses also highlighted theory,
methods, and
approaches in the literature, showing a relatively even distribution of
deductive and inductive approaches, and quantitative and qualitative
approaches, using several well-known theories from psychology (e.g.,
theories
of behavior change) and sociology (social networks). The review
provides
examples of literature in the project’s time period that illustrate
these
topics. The chapter ends with a discussion of future research
directions (for
example, cross-platform or holistic assessments examining the effects
of broad
everyday digital technology use on health and well-being) and research
challenges
(for example, Methods, Rapid change in healthcare technology, Big data
for
health, and Linking personal and clinical health data with well-being
outcomes).
Handbook
Table of Contents (with live links to all chapter abstracts)