Sociogenesis of new technologies disorders and self-quantification devices

Abstract

In this article we provide a historical understanding of the relationship between psychology and current new technologies. The proposed sociohistorical approach –sociogenesis- notices how the discipline of psychology, from its scientific origins, has been actively involved in the production and management of the profound social and ergonomic nature of the psyche. This overview also prompts us to relate the attempts to erase the distance between the body and production technologies and technological conditions that arise under the digital society, and their current fuelled interest in metrics and management. At the end of the article we suggest that some of the movements that led radical positivist enterprise of science throughout the last century can be understood as the preambles or conditions which paved the way to current Big Data paradigm and ongoing proliferation of self-quantification devices. Together with the definition of new technological disorders, these devices, which aim the improvement of well being and fitness, render open the psychological discourse, and its psychologisation tendencies, to development of post-industrial capitalism.