Everyday living with algorithmic systems
Algorithmic systems and digital platforms are becoming an indispensable part of our everyday lives, being shaped by both predictable and unpredictable uses and applications of technology. Drawing from research on living with datafication, digital platforms and algorithms, the starting point of my study is that people’s daily encounters and experiences with algorithmic systems are itself a rich site to understand digital systems and their implications. Understanding the dynamic between the emerging datafied power and ordinary people helps us to build knowledge on how we could live better and build a more balanced relationship with our everyday algorithmic systems and platforms.
My dissertation will be conducted as qualitative research on different geopolitical contexts, mainly in Finland and China, contrasting and comparing findings, but also paying attention to the locality and uniqueness of them. In the later phase of the research, utilizing design-inspired qualitative methods, the findings from the different locations will be used to rethink and speculate how we want – and do not want – to shape the technological everyday and which values and aspects we want to put to the centre of our futures.