Digital Interfaces, Credit and Debt
The project proposes a novel approach to debt as an everyday phenomenon that is mediated through the relationship between technology and embodied practice.
Led by Dr James Ash, with co-investigators Dr Ben Anderson and Dr Paul Langley, this 18 month project seeks to understand how consumers access HCSTC (High Cost Short Term Credit), such as cash and pay day loans through digital interfaces, on personal computers and mobile devices. In turn, it explores how these interfaces shape decision making processes regarding the purchasing of credit.
The project proposes a novel approach to debt as an everyday phenomenon that is mediated through the relationship between technology and embodied practice. Understanding how people become indebted through digital interfaces is critical to analyzing and explaining contemporary indebtedness because 82% of cash and pay day loans, a key form of HCSTC, are now applied for and managed via digital interfaces on laptops, tablets and smartphones, according to the Competition and Markets Authority (2015).
(Funded by ESRC, value £202,657, 2016-18)