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Entangled Pregnancies: Expectants' Experiences of Using Pregnancy Apps
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Informatics and Media, Human-Computer Interaction.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9216-2546
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Informatics and Media.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7455-540x
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Informatics and Media.ORCID iD: 0009-0002-9648-9930
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Informatics and Media.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8086-4962
2025 (English)In: FAccT '25: Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2025, p. 2924-2933Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Digital applications for tracking pregnancy and fetal development are increasingly popular, yet we know little of how these technologies shape individual pregnancy experiences. This empirical study investigates how 17 expectants in Sweden use such apps to make sense of their pregnancies. It is grounded in feminist perspectives, highlighting the need to focus on women's health. Drawing on entanglement and flat ontology, we show how apps are part of socio-material configurations where they contribute to pregnancy meaning-making. We show how users experience a gradual realization that apps model ideal pregnancies and not the participants' own, how the app's commercial nature conflicts with many participants' ideals of pregnancy, and how participants continue to use apps despite this but engage in selective use. All to support ways of making pregnancy in desired ways. Finally, we outline how users engage with pregnancy apps and the resulting natureculture arrangements where bodies and technology are intertwined and co-constructed. We argue that entanglement should be seen as a process, not a state, as users continually negotiate their use, engaging in what could be called processes of untangling.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2025. p. 2924-2933
Keywords [en]
Pregnancy, HCI, user studies, reproductive health, entanglement theory
National Category
Human Computer Interaction Gender Studies Gynaecology, Obstetrics and Reproductive Medicine
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-567958DOI: 10.1145/3715275.3732188ISI: 001543679300176Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105010818545ISBN: 979-8-4007-1482-5 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-567958DiVA, id: diva2:2003021
Conference
8th Conference on Fairness Accountability and Transparency - FAccT, June 23-26, 2025, Athens, Greece
Available from: 2025-10-02 Created: 2025-10-02 Last updated: 2026-06-22Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Making Bodies: Becoming with FemTech
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Making Bodies: Becoming with FemTech
2026 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This thesis explores the becoming of bodies with FemTech – female health technologies – motivated by the widespread use of reproductive health apps for tracking menstruation, fertility, and pregnancy. Empirically, the aim is to understand the implications of FemTech for what it means to have a body, to be a body, and to exist in relation to other bodies in a time when digital technologies have fundamentally transformed how we live, act, and interact in society. Theoretically, the aim is to expand how bodies are conceptualised, understood, and designed for within Human-Computer Interaction. Underpinned by relational ontologies, entanglement theories, and Karen Barad’s agential realism, this thesis approaches bodies as emerging relationally with technologies. It asks what bodies become with FemTech. Using thematic literature review, qualitative interviews, app walkthrough method, and autoethnography, it explores this question through five empirical studies which capture FemTech as phenomenon, the perspectives of developers and users, and the design of these technologies. Synthesising the findings from the empirical studies, I show how bodies emerge as what I call cyclic-reproductive with FemTech. Through intra-action with FemTech the body becomes a cyclic-reproductive force, an agency in itself. As the body becomes cyclic-reproductive it gains new meaning, lived experiences are reinterpreted, and the relationship between subject and body is transformed. The cyclic-reproductive body emerges as an agency that is ever-present and boundless, yet distinct from the subject. It becomes something that users cannot completely grasp or know, while remaining ever-present in their lives. In a concluding discussion, I argue that in order to understand what humans become with technologies, we must move beyond viewing technologies as fixed, designed artefacts and instead understand them as emergent phenomena that make particular constitutions of humans possible and impossible. Understanding bodies differently is to take responsibility in the mattering of bodies through design and technology, and I encourage researchers to think with entanglement theories in a pragmatic stretching and unstretching to make alternative perspectives on technologies visible and new worlds possible.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Uppsala University, Department of Informatics and Media, 2026. p. 71
Series
Uppsala Studies in Human-Computer Interaction ; 7
Keywords
FemTech, reproductive health technologies, bodies, entanglement, agential realism, relational ontologies
National Category
Human Computer Interaction
Research subject
Human-Computer Interaction
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-591641 (URN)978-91-506-3183-8 (ISBN)
Public defence
2026-09-09, Hörsal 2, Kyrkogårdsgatan 10, Uppsala, 13:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2026-08-14 Created: 2026-06-22 Last updated: 2026-08-14

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Tylstedt, BeatriceSadowski, HelgaEliasson, CarolineEklund, Lina

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