Managing stress through the Stress Free app: Practices of self-care in digitally mediated spaces

Abstract

In this paper we are concerned with the question of how we feel when living in concert with multiple technologies. More specifically, we are focused on the influx of digital apps designed to manage psychological wellbeing. We draw on empirical work exploring one such app, Stress Free, and focus on the experiences of stress and technological tools designed to lessen stress. Our concern is with the way that technologies become part of the experience of stress as opposed to solely understanding the app as a tool aimed to reduce the occurrence and severity of stress. This involves taking a theoretical journey through philosophies of technology that provide valuable resources for conceptualising the relational characteristics of digitally mediated stress. Our wider interest is to speak to broader concerns with the movement to ‘digital care’ and the implications for how we conceptualise technology, self and care therein.