Digital atmospheres of mental health apps: A new materialist exploration of the experience of managing mental (ill)health using an app

Apps are an increasingly commonplace source of support and authority for managing mental (ill)health symptoms. This article analyses their increasingly agential role in support practices through their capacity to reconfigure individual and collective understandings of mental health. New materialist research acknowledges the agency of both human and non-human actors and considers the on-going relations of bodies and technology within social contexts. We apply the concept of digital atmosphere to trace the material-affective forces constituting the experience of using a mental health app. Our findings demonstrate the multiplicity of ways people improvise with their use, situated within their own unique contexts and environments, and the influence of relationships on individual perceptions and engagements with the apps. Furthermore, we consider the different ways in which participants perceive their mental (ill)health, sometimes in fractious conflict with the apps. Finally, we highlight that features of for-profit apps can reshape understanding of mental (ill)health needs and perceptions of responsibility, resulting in the capacity for apps to be simultaneously disciplining and liberating. The findings provide insight of significant value to mental health policy and practice. •Increasingly, people are engaging with apps to manage symptoms of mental (ill)health.•Digital atmosphere is a valuable concept to capture the agency of both humans and technologies in the use of mental health apps.•An individual's relationship with their app is heavily contingent on context, environments and relationships.•The experience of using a mental health app can feel both disciplining and liberating.