Dichotomies of (dis)empowerment in health & well-being selftracking— an integrative review

Marketing research increasingly addresses the role of technology in trends that grant more power to consumers, such as in their pursuit of health and well-being. When they accompany patient-centric care and consumer health initiatives for example, self-tracking (ST) technologies can function as empowering tools that enable individual autonomy and control. However, they also raise the risk of disempowerment, with negative effects for certain consumers. Amid fragmented findings and a potentially overhyped ST narrative, empowerment remains an ambiguous concept, with mixed, poorly understood potential effects. To establish more clarity about ST’s potential for both empowerment and disempowerment, the current study reports on a multidisciplinary, integrative literature review, spanning wide-ranging health and well-being ST applications. The authors in turn conceptualize ST empowerment as an overarching state and process, comprising key concepts and mechanisms that can be expressed as empowerment or disempowerment according to four dichotomies, as shaped by personal, social, and technological factors. The resulting multidimensional framework situates mixed prior findings and offers a comprehensive view of (dis)empowerment in an important consumer technology context. It advances marketing and consumer empowerment literature, particularly in technology-mediated contexts, while also offering significant implications for researchers and practitioners.