ICS Seminar Series

Abstract Technologies across the health and wellbeing sector are rapidly advancing, with significant implications for adolescent health research, policy and practice. An array of technologies extend upon existing techniques and increasingly expand with multinational companies: internet-of-things, artificial intelligence, social media, immersive and ‘omic’ technologies, blockchain, 3D printing, robotics, plus gaming. While such innovations often attract quick deployment, we must also pause to consider associated motivations, processes and beneficiaries. How the adolescent stage of the life-course is investigated, governed and practiced depends upon the pathways of these emerging technologies. Inviting an ecological perspective not only provokes new possibilities and practices (Stengers, 2005), but also much needed attention to the material, biological, cultural, and social dimensions of public health (Lang & Rayner, 2012). To test this line of inquiry, an ‘ethics of engagement’ generated with young people, professionals, and researchers is outlined. I propose this heuristic offers a way to deliberate multiscalar issues and potential actions: firstly, in surfacing the opportunities and tensions of health technologies; secondly, by promoting a shared, intergenerational responsibility that supports an ecological approach to wellbeing in the digital age. This presentation is based on research being conducted with the Wellbeing Health & Youth Centre of Research Excellence. Biography Dr Teresa Swist is Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. She is part of the Wellbeing Health & Youth Centre of Research Excellence, a National Health and Medical Research Council funded initiative. Teresa is exploring young people’s participation in health research, plus the ways in which knowing, making and caring are being transformed in the digital age. As a transdisciplinary researcher, she examines how participatory methodologies gather together people of diverse ages, backgrounds and expertise to re-imagine the future of health, learning, work and cities. Teresa also brings an ecological approach towards understanding the integral role of creativity and technology in our everyday lives, alongside the evolving practices of professionals, institutions and society. Her work has been published in Journal of Youth Studies, New Media & Society, and Higher Education Research & Development.