PIC W9 L1 technologies, identities and exclusion

identity and exclusion

What is technology:

-              A broad, complicated, and encompassing term

-              Idea of tech is often tied to contemporary moment in which the question is being proposed – i.e. different ideas about technology at different points in time

-              Often think about it temporally – bound into a present

o   But there’s a lot longer lineage

-              It’s also a question of what is the human – what does it mean to be human/ manipulate the world around us

 

Kline (1985) – four stages of the world ‘technology’:

-              Artifacts (hardware)

-              System of manufacture

-              Know-how (technique)

-              System of use

Hardware: quote

-              “the devices and techniques employed by society to sustain its existence and improve its quality of life […] [t]echnology most often refers to tangible, practical objects” (Wilbanks, 2004: 3).

Hardware:

-              Stuff we use to manipulate the world around us – with our bodies (hands/ feet etc)

-              E.g. we want to cut – use a knife

-              Manipulate world around us for fuel, shelter – fundamental needs

o   i.e. how we answer our basic needs

Process of manufacture:

-              we live in sophisticated world

-              how do we end up with our products

-              systems of technologies to reproduce more technologies/ hardware

-              process of manufactures – been around for a long time

-              greater efficiency and refinement over time

-              multiple forms of manufacturing process

-              fewer humans involved nowadays – lees likely to get injured

Know-how – savoir -fare:

-              How do we know how to do this stuff

-              E.g. Light a fire

-              ways in which we are able to use these technologies is dependent. On us knowing how to do it - e.g. manipulating fire bodies

-              when baby born- certain things are tracked – height, weight, fine motor skills

o   learn to manipulate items – learn to write/ hold a pen etc.

-              society is structure din a way to constantly train the next generation in this form of know-how

-              we draw on understandings of existing technologies to learn how to use new ones

-              process/ system of. Hardware and know how come together

Personal technologies: quote

-              “The body is [a human’s] first and most natural instrument. Or more accurately, not to speak of instruments, [a human’s] first and most natural technical object, and at the same time technical means, is his [or her] body.” (Mauss, 1973: 75)

Personal technologies:

-              … ‘disciplinary’ actions that have become taken for granted.

-              We discipline ourselves through institutions – e.g. schools, factories – subject to these forms of disciplines

System of use:

-              Easy to overlook ‘the mundane’ – technologies we don’t think about can have significant impact

-              Things in the world we take for granted – don’t always thinking about it

Black boxes: quote

-              “…technology is often treated as a ‘black box’ whose contents and behaviour may be assumed to be common knowledge”

o   (Layton 1977: 198)

Black boxes:

-              Technology is treated as black boxes – don’t necessarily understand what’s in them but have a set of common tacit knowledge of how it works

o   E.g. put a plug in a wall then the light bulb will turn on

 

Health and technology:

-              Health technologies can help lead to better treatment

-              Health technologies are becoming more common, more advanced, and less restricted to medical settings.

-              Health technologies help lay people engage with medical practitioners in a way that can be positive and lead to better treatment.

o   Access medics more easily – rural areas and internationally

-              Help us benchmark society – what a develop society looks like, progress (often configured in relation to technology)

-              Reliant on the fact these are designed tools that we expect to work

-              BUT:

o   poorly implemented or designed health technologies can exacerbate existing inequalities.

o   Assumptions that sit behind them matter

Models of disability:

medical and social

-              Prosthesis – add things to body to do things that otherwise couldn’t – medical techniques to deal with impairement

medical

o   disability is the result of individual impairment/ injury/ difference

o   common in medicine.

social

o   disability as a shortcoming of society failing to adapt

o   sees disability not as a direct result of an impairment/injury/difference

o   Clearest example of this is when comparing disabilities that are common and unobtrusively ‘remedied’ than those that require more prominent adaptations.

Normative understandings of the body:

-              Normative ideas of the body assume a ‘standard’ or ‘correct’ body that all others deviate from.

o   Often male – many technologies created without taken into account that a women’s body differs from a man

§  E.g. periods/ menstruation – not even looked at

The results in multiple dimensions of exclusion including

o   Difference is defined in terms of absence, inability, and other negative framings.

o   Assumptions are made about the accessibility, impact, and suitability of product/process etc. because they are designed around a singular theoretical ‘norm’.

-              Upon which hardware, systems of use are predicated

Example 1: normative health technologies:

-              Most health technologies – including medicines – are tested on men/ male orientated biological model (male mouse/ male test animal)  resulting in women being significantly more likely to experience adverse drug reactions and when they do these are also more likely to result in hospitalisation.

o   Often abstract things out seen as too complicated e.g. menstruation

-              Technologies that function by shining light on skin and measuring reflections work better and more accurately on lighter skin tones – including pulse oximeters.

-              Artificial limb skin tones are very limited and matches are more likely to be available for white men. Poorer matches result in higher rejection rates.

Technologies of the self:

-              Beyond ‘biology as destiny’

o   (Rose, 2001)

o   Rose, N. 2001 “The Politics of Life Itself”, Theory, Culture & Society 18(6): pp. 1-30.

-              “Prosthesis” is a translation of the Ancient Greek meaning ‘addition’, so a ‘prosthetic’ technology is one that is seen to ‘add’ to the body

-              This can include anything that reshapes how the body works, but describing non-medical technologies as prostheses has been critiqued (e.g., De Preester and Tsakiris, 2009)

-              A ‘biomedical prosthesis’ is one that serves a specifically biomedical purpose (e.g., an artificial limb)

-              For a prosthetic limb to be ‘accepted’ it needs to fit into someone’s ‘body schemata’ – their sense of the form of their body

-              Technologies of the self – grant a movement of our body beyond ‘our destiny’

 

Innovating on health technologies beyond the body:

-              These technologies are being improved quite rapidly

-              Rapid growth in the capacity of these technologies to provide a more fulfilling life

o   But only comparatively recently

o   Taken a long time to have investment

o   Often tied up to wide political/ economic issues in society

Example 2: ‘assistants’:

-              Assistants being sold to use elderly, housebound, additional needs

-              Especially those who would’ve needed home visits regularly for medical issues – the home assistants are marketed as a solution

-              Also helping to do everyday things even if don’t need that form of care

 

-              “Consistently representing digital assistants as female…hard-codes a connection between a woman’s voice and subservience.”

o   Jessica Nordell, New Republic (2016)

-              Idea of a female assistant as subservient

-              Who makes them? Rich white men – in a narrow social dynamic

-              Lots of the assumptions being the technologies that are sold to us as helpful and advancing our lives aren’t neutral – carry with them a lot of politics of who counts in society, why they count – sometimes implying/ directly who does not

-              Why is it an assistant in the home being figured as a female

-              Descriptions of the personalities

-              Why are they gendered

 

Example 3: health and AI:

-              AI has the ability to process huge volumes of data (very quickly), but this means errors can be replicated in ways humans wouldn’t do.

-              AI can introduce biases to data analysis, especially where biases already exist in data sets.

-              High risk application with restricted use in EU but fewer restrictions elsewhere.

o   EU – over where can and should be used

o   Can be used for screening cancers but not other forms of diagnoses

o   Very patchy across the world

o   AI far less regulated in some countries than other s- particularly in USA

-              AI is still poorly regulated and understood by many consumers and users.

-              Doesn’t work everywhere so well – the biases can make a material, real difference – can’t be blanketly applied

-              The medicine were being asked to take isn’t just decide don a human doctor’s knowledge

-              Subject to that black box of AI technology – don’t necessarily know how those inferences is being applied

Power:

-              Sweden said this was medically ok – 37 got pregnant even though followed it

-              “Nowhere do issues of privacy and technology intertwine more than at the interface of the health of the individual and the health of a community.” (Rosenberg and Waldbrook, 2017: 454)

-              Many reproductive tracking apps don’t treat data on menstrual cycles as sensitive (Shipp and Blasco, 2020) which has caused alarm following the overturning of Roe v. Wade

-              If sold or leaked, medical data can be used to target vulnerable people, e.g., denying insurance claims.

-              All the big data companies want access to our health data – have it in USA and are getting it in the UK.

o   NHS ideal access point – centralised set of data over whole population over a long set of time

-              Error rate of about 90% to deny care

-              When access to healthcare has a direct relationship with what you can afford, it become existential

The digital divide:

-              Who has access and who doesnt

-              Long-running discussion of a digital divide. Yet, the proportion of adults identified as ‘non internet users’ has dropped continuously over the years.

-              However, this compounds issues – the more common internet use is, the more likely it is to be assumed as a given.

-              Distribution of access to technologies. Ownership varies on age and socio-economic profiles

-              Also about norms of use. Some people grow up with technology being very accessible.

o   Norms change over time

o   Generational differences – not just economic differences

-              Remains to be active sets of concerns

-              3% of adults don’t have a smartphone, tablet, or laptop (c1.5m) (CDI)

-              8% of households struggle to afford broadband (c1.9m households) (Ofcom)

-              9% of households struggle to afford mobile (c2.6m households) (Ofcom)

-              15% of 8-25 year olds are without home broadband (c2.1m) (DYI)

-              14% of 8-25 year olds lack access to a larger screen device for learning (c2m) (DYI)

-              4% of 8-25 year olds lack both a learning device and home internet (c570k) (DYI) 

o   Theres a generation of people who just don’t have internet connection at home and probably never will

o   An issue as gov tried to implement things over the internet

-              Differences over who can afford access to the internet – some have unlimited 4G/5G/ broadband.

-              Vulnerable people

-              Becomes a difficult political problem – for how gov implements their systems if no interne

 

-              How many people ask others to do things for them online

-              Family members asking others for help

-              Very common

-              For fundamental things

Three levels of digital divide:

-              These divides are amplified by assumptions and norms.

-              Level 1: Access –

o   does a person have access to IT/internet (e.g., enabled technology, internet infrastructure, ability to pay).

o   Access gap

-              Level 2: Skills and Uses –

does a person have the skills to use IT/internet (e.g., do they have training, familiarity, or access to learning

-              Level 3: Outcomes –

o   does a person’s use of IT/internet lead to different outcomes (e.g., better learning, productivity, health)

o   Does a use of these technologies lead to different outcomes

Digital exclusion:

-              Many resources and services are now only available through online portal and websites,

-              BUT: also loss of public access (e.g. libraries)

-              This has been coupled with the loss of public access to computers (e.g., in libraries) meaning that individuals without access to a private computer can be excluded from accessing vital services.

o   Computers in libraries was a central part of state/ gov heping people access these services

o   But now not open as long/ as much

-              This produces a ‘catch-22’ scenario (Holmes and Burgess, 2022)

o   If don’t have access can’t ask for help to get access

-              Not simply about lack of internet enabled device – can be lack of understanding, knowledge, income to pay for subscriptions etc.

-              “Digital inclusion should always be seen as embedded in a person’s offline circumstance” (Helsper, 2012: 405)

 

Impacts of digital exclusion:

-              Limited access to vital services, reduced career opportunities, and increased exposure to risks.

-              Reduction in training and familiarity may increase vulnerability when online.

-              Intersects with other issues, such as poverty, amplifying their consequences.

-              Detrimental to career progression and independent living.

-              Severe and broad impacts

-              Challenges created by and exacerbated by digital exclusion

-              Access to internet is just as fundamental as other needs

 

Summary:

-              Technology is more than just ‘digital’

o   ‘Mundane’ technologies shape our everyday lives too but can be overlooked.

-              Technologies are both sites and subjects of exclusion but can also be an avenue to inclusion

-              Inequality is changing – the digital divide is become starker even if fewer people are affected.