Technology: Is it affecting our ability to be responsible, active citizens?

If you want to master a skill, the advice is usually simple – train regularly, keep practising, and remember: if you don’t use it, you lose it.

The same applies to our brains. As citizens, we are expected to engage critically with public debate, and form rational conclusions based on our analysis of evidence and arguments.

However, this requires work. If we delegate that responsibility too much – whether that’s to a system, a government or a technology – we may find ourselves less able to do so when it really matters.

This is a phenomenon known as “Organised Immaturity”. Organised Immaturity is a major focus of the work of Dr Cristina Neesham, working alongside project leader Professor Andreas Georg Scherer of the University of Zurich, Professor Dennis Schoeneborn of Copenhagen Business School and Professor Markus Scholz of the Technical University Dresden.

Organised Immaturity is not caused by any single factor or entity, and is induced by the combination of various social mechanisms. However, Dr Neesham argues that relying too heavily on technology in our daily lives can play a noticeable role in the deterioration of our maturity as citizens.

She says: “What we are seeing with the widespread introduction of digital technologies is an erosion and loss of maturity.

“This has an impact on an individual’s capacity to govern themselves and to participate fully in society. And the most dangerous thing about it is that it’s embraced voluntarily. We’re all tempted – for the sake of little comforts and conveniences – to let go of much more serious and important values such as privacy, autonomy and self-reliance.”

Dr Neesham’s research investigates how Organised Immaturity can take hold in societies, and how it affects us. It also suggests several ways to counteract its effects at a governmental, grassroots and individual level, as long as people are willing to act.

Dr Neesham describes her work on this topic as “big theory”. Essentially, her role is to identify an overarching theory that explains the challenges we are facing, so that others can investigate and build solutions that work for different communities and use cases.

A paper published by the team in 2023 observed that the social trends we are discussing today share striking similarities with conversations dating back as far as the European Enlightenment.

The paper analysed and evaluated how different societal evolutions in modern history affected behaviour, and noted similar discussions about independent thinking and engagement in democratic processes.

“It’s a matter of understanding what is likely to happen if these technologies continue to be used as they have been so far, and looking to regulate and reorient the ways we use them, so that the Organised Immaturity effects are reduced. Some of the solutions can be created with the same technology.

As far back as the eighteenth century, philosophers such as Immanuel Kant were speaking out against the “self-inflicted immaturity” that came from an inability or unwillingness “to use one’s reason without the guidance of another”.

Dr Neesham argues this is significant, because it counters the argument that we can’t draw on the past to navigate our unique modern challenges. As a result, we can “learn from past errors”, and “develop radical solutions not only to how we as individuals relate to technology, but also to how we organise”.

She says: “We are not living on a blank page. How we organise collectively as a species, how we meet our needs, how we behave and socialise and what we want – these fundamentals are all very similar, even though our technological systems may become more complex over time.”

The work of Dr Neesham and her co-authors provides a framework that can be applied to a variety of situations and groups. When the paper was published in Business Ethics Quarterly in July 2023, it was accompanied by research from other authors exploring how Organised Immaturity presented itself in various contexts, and how it could be addressed.

The topics included threats to data transparency, power relations on digital platforms, digital influencing of employee behaviours at work, and the role of the creative arts in resisting digital pressures on personal freedom.

Dr Neesham says: “It’s important to note that this is not coming from a perspective that insists we need to fight against technology. In fact, many of the people involved in social movements resisting Organised Immaturity are experienced and competent IT people.

The role of governments, grassroots civil movements and individuals

The paper suggests a number of approaches that could be used to counter the effects of Organised Immaturity in our digital age.

These are split into two groups:

• “Disorganising Immaturity”, in which society adopts various forms of individual and collective resistance that reduce the impact of damaging systems
• “Organising Maturity”, in which we work to strengthen the ability of individuals and collectives to think and act independently Crucially, one cannot succeed without the other.

For example, the paper stresses the importance of discussing and developing regulation, and calls for more conversations around the ethics of technology. Dr Neesham says it is “clearly possible” to “have ethical and social responsibility principles embedded into the process of any innovation or company”.

Beyond regulation, she points to the power of various forms of digital disobedience, such as distorting or encrypting personal information or whistleblowing on data leaks and misuse.

However, she argues that much of this activity will not go deep enough if it does not also focus on maintaining the ability of the individual to use these systems, and to act and think independently and maturely.

She says: “Policy frameworks often cover the loss of autonomy, agency and privacy, but there’s something more fundamental there, which is the loss of maturity.

“In many ways, maintaining our maturity as citizens is more important. Because if you’ve lost the ability to use and engage with these spaces and democratic institutions, it doesn’t matter how well they’re being preserved. If you don’t know how to use them, they have very little value to you.”

How can individuals preserve their own abilities?

In order to truly counteract the effects of Organised Immaturity, Dr Neesham says that we as citizens need to take responsibility for our own abilities.

We need to be aware of the trade-offs we are making when we introduce convenient technologies into our lives, and learn how to identify approaches and strategies designed to influence our behaviour. Furthermore, we should be aware of our rights, as well as steps we can take to protect our personal information and freedoms more effectively.

Education plays a key role in this, and Dr Neesham acknowledges the importance of the media and social justice movements in warning citizens about potentially damaging developments. But she adds that it is vital that we do some of the work ourselves.

Dr Neesham and Professor Scherer took a more detailed look at what citizens need to do to train their own maturity in a paper published in the Organization Theory journal in October 2023.

In fact, Dr Neesham is currently involved with an interdisciplinary project called AGENCY, which sets out to address the impact of online harms. The EPSRC-funded project features representatives from six leading UK universities.

Newcastle University Business School is also planning to host an international workshop and symposium in 2024 that will welcome leading academics and practitioners involved in digital technology ethics. The aim is to analyse problems raised by digital tools and systems, and develop specific policy responses.

She says: “We need to get past this phase of saying we need to accept whatever comes. We need to acknowledge the problems, get together and work out solutions.

“These are large social problems, and they don’t just have one aspect. We need people with different experiences and expertise to address them.”