Our Take on Digital Society Research

What do we mean by ‘The Digital’?

The ‘digital’ relates to a diverse range of ideas, devices, data, software and infrastructures which have been taking an increasingly significant role in our lives over the past 50 years. During this time we have seen the rise of home computers, video games, mobile phones, tablets, the web, dot.coms, social media, smart technologies, streaming services, algorithms and artificial intelligence. Of course some forms of information, computing and communications technologies were in use by certain people prior to this, but no where near to the levels of engagement and modes of acceleration we have seen since.

Profound changes have been variously, diversely, and often unequally experienced, since the introduction of early home computers such as the ZX81 in the early 1980s, the internet in the form the Web in 1983 and the first UK mobile phone call in 1985. Fast forward to the 1990s and changes experienced by more of society were seen, for example in relation to consumers (e-commerce), our intimate lives (the introduction of internet dating) and how we spent our leisure time (the Sony Playstation).

In the 2000s, came the iPhone (and the Appstore) and 3G, the technology that allowed mobile phones to connect to the internet. During this decade a plethora of Social Media were launched, as was Netflix. The 2010s saw the roles and politics of algorithms get increased attention and it ushered in smart watches, self driving cars and tablets such as the iPad.

Early in the 2020s fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rapid uptake of technologies such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, home working has become a reality for many in certain jobs and artificial intelligence has come to the fore as it raises significant ethical and political questions for our lives.

Researching the digital is complicated…

This is because of many things, including:

• the sheer number of academic disciplines that seek to generate knowledge about this area;
• rhetoric regarding change as necessarily continuous and unavoidable in the name of digial innovation;
• and, the corresponding ask on academia to keep pace with the digital world and engage with narratives regarding continuous improvement, and the launch of products and services that are pitched as markedly different to what has gone before (yet the actually often only represent incremental development).

In response, we are not deterministic in our view of the design, development and uptake of digital arrangements. We know that usage can be non-existent, uneven and far from designers intentions as their visions for products and services meet with unexpected indifference, resistance and innovation in use. We also know that processes of, selling, commercially or otherwise, and the exercise of different forms of power, are integral to the design, delivery and outcomes of digital artefacts and the lives we attempt to create with them – or not.