An Apple-watch all day keeps your life astray-or does it?

Abstract

Aims: This paper discusses whether self-monitoring technology for continuous self-evaluation may harm us as individuals and communities. The aspiration of obtaining absolute knowledge is spoken of in Genesis. The story of the fall is a basic and universal human myth that warns against the aspiration to acquire absolute knowledge. Is self-evaluation a recipe for being alienated from ourselves and from others or may it serve as motivation for needed change?

Conclusions: Changes in western culture within and outside healthcare indicate that self-evaluation can be balanced and complemented by new common ground in medical ethics and psychotherapy. Promoting medical functionalism, as suggested by the United Nations World Social Report, is a step in this direction. Practices allowing open presence and mindfulness and reframing of the health concept can also pave the way for stronger solidity and robustness in individual people combined with communal engagement and responsibility.