Always On is changing...

A note to subscribers

When I started this newsletter in May 2021 I had two motives. First, I wanted to promote my book Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era at a time when it was not clear that there would be many “real world” opportunities to do that.

But I was also aware by then that my career at the BBC would be coming to an end in the autumn. I wanted to experiment with Substack to see if I liked it, and to find out whether it could be a useful platform for my writing as an independent journalist.

Well, I did like it - and now I am preparing to move this newsletter to the next stage. The title stays the same - Always On seems like a decent brand - but will now have a subtitle: A tech notebook with an accent on health.

Here’s why the time feels right for a newsletter focusing on healthtech.

The smartphone and social media revolution of the last 15 years has transformed the way we live in so many ways - for good and ill. But many of those changes have been relatively trivial  - in the words of Peter Thiel “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”

One example - this digital revolution has been slow to change healthcare. But that is changing, with the experience of the pandemic opening our eyes to what technologies from AI to smartphone apps to wearable sensors could contribute to the treatment and prevention of disease.

I come at this with a special interest, both as a technology writer and as someone with two long term conditions eager to hear about advances that could help me and millions of others.

There is a wide range of stories and issues to cover. Is artificial intelligence really cutting down the time it takes to develop drugs and automating the examination of scans and so threatening the jobs of radiologists - or is that all hype? Should we welcome the rapid adoption of remote consultation technology by GPs or demand a speedy return to face-to-face appointments?

Then there is the debate about health data and privacy - should we be extremely cautious about allowing our patient records to be shared with commercial organisations or does the potential benefit for medical research trump those concerns? I am firmly in the latter camp, impatient that often exaggerated and conspiratorial fears about “big pharma” or government surveillance are slowing down the innovations that could result from the sharing of data. But I will be eager to hear from both sides of this debate.

With a wall of cash now being invested in healthtech firms there are all sorts of corporate stories to follow. London, Oxford and Cambridge are all home to  plenty of health tech and biotech firms and in examining the likes of Babylon, Huma and Benevolent AI I hope to celebrate British success stories while casting a sceptical eye over the valuations of some of these businesses.

Of course, when it comes to health there are also plenty of opportunities to part the gullible from their cash. I have taken a particular interest in the thriving industry offering products which claim to offer protection against the alleged radiation harms caused by mobile phones and wireless networks,  everything from stickers you put on the back of your  phone to pendants containing the magic mineral shungite.  In an occasional series titled “The World of Woo” I will examine products making those claims - let me know if you spot any.

And finally, to my personal angle on health tech. As a BBC correspondent, I wrote about the intersection between tech and the two long-term conditions which I have, Parkinson’s Disease and ocular melanoma. I described a trial I have joined which could produce a wearable device which would monitor the symptoms of Parkinson’s and perhaps even provide early warnings about the condition. When I underwent Proton Beam therapy for my ocular melanoma I kept a video diary of the experience. Afterwards, people facing the same challenges of living with these conditions got in touch to say they had found these articles useful - so I will be keen to share anything I learn about progress in the treatment of Parkinson’s or eye cancer.

To make this work I’ll need all the help I can get. If you are in the health tech industry, or do PR for the companies, if you are a patient with strong views on privacy and health data or a doctor frustrated by the IT systems you have to work with, get in touch with all your news and views.

Now, at some stage part of proving that I am serious about this will be to "go paid”, in other words seek to convince at least some of you that it is worth paying to support this newsletter. Don’t worry - most of the content will continue to be free but I will be looking at ways of offering paying customers something extra.

Now, let’s see if we can do this…