Turbinando nossos Selfs: um estudo exploratório sobre os aplicativos de autoajuda no cenário brasileiro

• Autor(a) principal: Mazzilli, Paola
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da PUC_SP
• Texto Completo: https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/22228
• topic: Subjetividade; Conectividade (Computadores); Self-empreendedorismo; Subjectivity; Connection machines; Self-Entrepreneurship; CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA

This research aims at investigating the offer of self-help mobile applications in the Brazilian scenario, in the beginning of the XXI century. Considered to be important behavioral shapers, such resources are a privileged study object to peer the emergence of a therapeutic culture, marked by values like connectivity and personal empowerment. Having in mind the understanding of how this technology has levered self-improvement practices in terms of health and well-being, we propose a comparison between the self-help literature and the new formats of this kind, directed to mobile devices. From the theoretical point of view, we propose a transdisciplinary study, including authors such as Levy, Kellner, Lemos, Auntoun Costa, Rose, Binkley, Sibilia, Sant’anna, Hoff, Rüdger, Freire Filho e Castellano. To compile such a comparison, we tabulate and analyze all 6.370 self-help books available at the Amazon.com.br site, as well as 1.018 self-help apps available for download at the Brazilian Play Store. It is worth mentioning that the number of these apps is exponentially increasing in recent years, dealing with a several- million-dollar market. By carrying out such an exhaustive mapping, we notice a remarkable paradigm change. Beyond encompassing the learning repertoires previously gathered in the self-help books, the applications are much more sophisticated resources in terms of personal management, since their interactivity allows for the individuals’ auto-diagnosis and auto-monitoring. However, in spite of feeling themselves more cared for and more autonomous, the applications’ users find themselves ever more dependent on these technologies, as for each established goal there is a created passive to be paid. Hence, the “processing” dynamics carried out by the self-help applications makes them personal-development technologies that are much more complex and inscrutable