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L. Sudeepika Wajirakumari Samarathunga

L. Sudeepika Wajirakumari Samarathunga
Digital Technologies for social justice
Fakultet for samfunnsvitenskap
02. februar 2023

“The impact of the society by digital technologies and the relationship between digital technology and social justice is necessary to talk in the same breath.”

“Digital technologies for social justice” is a research project conducted by the University of Agder, Norway. The main research area of this research project is to identify how digital technology affects the social relationships in the community when people use IT, particularly in education aspects and for financial transitions. Thereby, I have contributed to the project at the data collection stage. The sample was selected using the snowball and strategic sampling techniques. I interviewed participants in Sri Lanka after their consent for the interview, using an open-ended questionnaire. Each interview was around 45 minutes and was conducted online. They were recorded and saved anonymously by adhering to the NSD guidelines. The informants shared their knowledge, experience on the benefits and drawbacks of IT-based applications and how the situation can affect social relationships and social challenges. After conducting the interviews, I have thoroughly understood that it is a demand for more research to be aware enough about society. Further, I could absolutely insist that digital technologies have changed society, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Digital technologies have opened social connections, and society has come developed new relationships that are more dependent on IT-based applications. This era can be considered as a transition era after the pandemic, so people have experienced the support of digital technologies to avoid physical contact. Thereby, financial transactions and education have been used on online platforms as solutions to replace physical existence. The participant shared the experience over the last years compared to the recent past related to social justice in the digital economy. It has driven through market forces that the results may create new areas of precarity and poverty, and the transformation process of society cannot be quite trivializing. Therefore, the situation can connect to research on what is happening in people’s lives. There can be more opportunities, as well as consequences even we could not have predicted yet, and how people can get vulnerable in cyberspace, especially students and small kids because they have faced forced digital transformation in online education and IT applications on social media.

In brief, ICT has influenced positive and negative aspects of everyday life over time. Participants claim for a closer look at scenarios in developing countries to avoid drawbacks of ICT and mobile technology at the global level. Because such user-case stories can bring innovative options for technology solutions and will create new market trends in future. Among others, the following responses can be specific to Sri Lanka and also can claim to be new knowledge, which may apply to other countries too.

                 * Impacts of ICT have variated among different segments of the society, such as age level, educational background, proficiency, infrastructure and living in urban or rural, etc, but such experiences are specific to the Sri Lankan context as a developing country ​in addition to higher variety of people who are highly equipped ICT applications.

                 * Further, people have experienced challenges due to engaging online for hours, such as draining senses, insufficient Internet capacity, lack of devices, a lot of power failure, poor signal for mobiles, unnecessary social contacts, insecurity for personal information, stress and caused to fewer physical activities.

                 * School students and low-income people have been more vulnerable due to the demand for ICT. Because ICT infrastructure is another life burden for them.

                 * Children are more preferred physical participation, whereas professionals have more demand and capacity for digital tools.

                  * In some cases, parents' ICT literacy is not sufficient. As a result, it brings negative consequences to their children. Some parents are worried about small kids staying at online education for hours and draining of senses. Informants have revealed that suicide cases of children and some other adverse incidences have happened due to misuse of ICT.

                  * More especially in Sri Lanka, country weather conditions like heavy rain with thundering and storms condition, number of hours without power supply per day, poor coverage of the internet and market strategies for bandwidth, despite the rapid change of transform of culture were unavoidable reasons which hinder the benefits of ICT.

                  * Participants have emphasised that inequality, privacy and ethical issues have been raised, even though we can foresee positive aspects and fairness of financial transactions and education using ICT. However, the responders’ awareness and consideration of ethical aspects are at a poor level. When I ask about ethical aspects, most of them had not been much aware of ethical issues due to ICT.

                   * As a developing country, vulnerable groups have challenges with the infrastructure of ICT, even though ICT brings benefits. As a result, a part of society has experienced poverty, inequality and frustration. Moreover, there is a long way to social justice through mobile technology, even though people have commonly used mobile devices since mobile technology brings quick access and receiving notifications.

                   * The government has not been able to fulfil the school's digital facility requirements and there is substantial space for necessary policy development. In addition, some foreign transactions have been temporarily stopped due to the economic instability of the country.

                   * Particularly, when the pandemic has arrived, people need to have a digital transformation, but the society was not ready for it and the country had not enough recourses and strength to overcome challenges. As a result, injustice has been raised while happening digital transformation.

                   * Facilitating infrastructure for ICT will be a challenge in a developing country, especially for vulnerable groups, even though ICT has brought benefits. As a result, a part of society has experienced poverty, inequality and frustration.

                   * Moreover, there is a long way to social justice with mobile technology, despite that mobile technology brings quick access and use with receiving notifications.

Indeed, the participants have shared thoughts that can observe frequently. For example,

                   * IT-supported tools and digital platforms are useful for both education aspects and financial transactions. There can be high demand in the future too.

                   * Support of digital tools has been more frequently applied after the Covid-19 pandemic, and it is a good option when physical participation is a challenge.

                   * People like to continue the use of ICT-related tools due to the benefits such as convenience, reliability, efficiency, avoiding queues, interesting social contacts, and revealing new opportunities.

 

The transcriptions are novel and interesting to read. I believe that this data will touch on the participants’ various ideas of the relationship between digital technologies and social justice and the consequences as a way that we constitute the world or engage the environment. In addition, researchers might identify the new features of technological applications and what designers should think about. When we hear about people's experiences, it could be a starting point for designers. Otherwise, it could be a position where people are being discriminated against. I believe that we really need to be mindful of those research findings. This research will be helping to fill those gaps, especially for the technology designing community and for the policymakers for a sustainable world. Finally, I am glad to contribute to this research project and look forward to reading the findings and the project contribution.