AUTHOR=Stanghellini Giovanni , Leoni Federico 

TITLE=Digital Phenotyping: Ethical Issues, Opportunities, and Threats

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00473

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00473

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=<p>This paper explores the potential threats of digital phenotyping and the ways it may redesign our body experience and conceptualization. We argue that technology in digital medicine, and in psychiatry in particular, is not merely an <italic>extrinsic</italic> device to achieve improvements in knowledge, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases; rather, it <italic>intrinsically</italic> and unavoidably implies potential effects on what it is to be a human person, namely the embodiment and relatedness in human affairs, and not only in the clinical setting. Last but not least, digital phenotyping may improve prediction of abnormal behaviour, but not improve its causal explanation or psychological understanding.</p>