The Digital Human - Implant

Implant

Download Implant

Imagine being able to fix a malfunction in your body with a programmable smart device implanted deep inside your body… The device senses, monitors and responds to your condition in real time and provides updates and analysis on your phone.

In the past few years, we’ve seen a boom in health apps and wearable smart devices offering personalised and real time analysis of our daily lives. It’s one thing putting on a wearable smart device - but what does it take to trust one implanted inside your body?

From continuous glucose monitoring for diabetics to invasive surgery implanting electrodes on the spinal cord or in the brain, Aleks Krotoski asks how a closer relationship with implanted health technology can affect our trust; from our faith in device functionality, security, and longevity, to our trust of ourselves, be it our agency, identity and intuition to read our own bodies.

Produced by Jac Phillimore

Published on Monday, 7th November 2022.

Available Podcasts from The Digital Human

Subscribe to The Digital Human

We are not the BBC, we only list available podcasts. To find out more about the programme including episodes available on BBC iPlayer, go to the The Digital Human webpage.