It is not very often that one encounters a revelation when doing research. This happened to me in our study of digitization and datafication of everyday life, when one of the participants, an older adult, described his sense of loneliness in a world that is rapidly digitized. With deteriorating vision and shaking hands he is expected to navigate through digital services, built with logic that is hidden in black boxes. This description, to me, captured the way society around us has become digitized – and it can be a problem.
Our Intimacy in Data-Driven Culture project
In our IDA research project, we have studied the experiences of digitization and datafication among people who can be considered vulnerable according to their life situation. These are people who are ageing, affected by unemployment or forced migration. While digital and data driven welfare services are launched to provide more cost-efficient services, our research shows that digital services are often difficult to access: barriers for access are, for example, related to technical skills, language skills, physical condition or poverty. It is not always possible to acquire smart devices that are required for the latest applications. The participants also conveyed frustration over overlapping applications in health services as well as useless bots or standardized forms that could not respond to their complex life situations. They expressed mistrust towards digital platforms and preferred face-to-face meetings and human encounters.
Previous research has highlighted the problems of datafication particularly from the point of view of inequality. The US based research by Eubanks and Gangadharan show that categorization and profiling based on social class, age or ethnic background can deepen existing inequalities and create new forms of inequality. The inequalities related to access, bias, and trust are likely to deepen unless we pay attention to the discriminatory mechanisms built into technologies and their dominance in service design.
In our own research, we have seen that inequalities also emerge within our Nordic welfare state. It is therefore important to be able to develop data-driven systems, more openly and in dialogue with citizens. In other words we have thought about digital and data-driven services as public infrastructure, as a public good.
Repairing and Reimagining Data-Driven Technology
We are not alone in this. In recent years, different initiatives have emerged with the aim of repairing and reimagining data-driven technologies. These include, for example, design justice (Costanza-Chock), anti-racist technology (Benjamin), data justice (Dencik) and data activism (Milan). These movements are united by the desire to imagine better digital technologies that do not discriminate and accumulate existing inequalities. For example, alternatives are designed for a racially biased facial recognition system or discriminatory algorithms.
The initiatives are united by a vision of grassroots design: in the development process those affected by the systems should be included right from the beginning; design needs to be based on collaboration, dialogue and listening. This means that we should really listen to the people in question – and be open to offer different kind of services to people in different life situation, even services with human beings.
Of course, all this takes time, but in the end isn’t it better to spend time promoting equality than to save time increasing inequality?
About the author
Kaarina Nikunen, Professor, Communication and Media Research
Their research explores how media constructs an understanding of the world and possibilities of participation: social justice and solidarity are important concepts in their work. They are particularly interested in how emotions and affect drive solidarity, social movements, and participation – and the way emotions are crafted through and with media.