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Deception as digital emotional labor: The use of welfare technology in dementia care
Mälardalen University, School of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Health and Welfare. (STS@MDU, Framtidens hållbara arbetsliv)ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9902-1191
Department of Social Work, Uppsala University.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6941-5760
Department of Sociology, Linköping University.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2818-8001
Department of Sociology, Uppsala University.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8073-6303
2024 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Welfare technology usually works best when users ignore it, or when they accept the technology’s presence without questioning it. However, this means that users’ integrity and their chance to make an informed consent is put at risk. Based on previous research and original empirical material, this presentation focuses on three examples to specify how this dilemma is materialized in dementia care. First, guidelines emphasize the need for informed consent when it comes to video surveillance, but video surveillance works best when the cameras are ignored. Second, nursing homes often use internet platforms for entertainment purposes and users’ profiles can be highly personalized. However, the algorithms that identify the users’ preferences are usually obscure—to residents as well as to care staff. Third, while robotic animals are increasingly used in dementia nursing homes, guidelines dissuade care staff from leading residents to believe that the robots are real. However, in practice both residents and care staff usually approach the robots as if they were real animals. These challenges concerning deception, transparency and integrity cannot simply be solved through additional information, as people with dementia may already be struggling to understand, and remember, abstract instructions. Deceptive practices in relation to technology is therefore here considered as a form of digital emotional labor through which care staff attempt to bridge the gap between policy and practice. They do so partly in their communication with nursing home residents, and partly through their own reflective practices around these technologies. In conclusion, it is argued that dilemmas connected to welfare technology, and the deceptive practices related to its use, are not built into the technological devices. Instead, deception is a relational phenomenon that emerges from interactions between care staff, residents, and technological artifacts and systems.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2024.
Keywords [en]
Agential realism, animal studies, deception, care ethics, dementia, elderly care, emotional labor, health and welfare technology, human-animal relationships, moral distress, posthumanism, posthuman theory, robots, work life
National Category
Sociology Sociology (Excluding Social Work, Social Anthropology, Demography and Criminology) Nursing Social Work
Research subject
Working Life Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-68188OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-68188DiVA, id: diva2:1889764
Conference
"Sociology in a digital world" - The 31st Nordic Sociological Association Conference. 14–16 August at Linköping University (Norrköping Campus), presentation given on August 15.
Funder
AFA Insurance, 220257Available from: 2024-08-16 Created: 2024-08-16 Last updated: 2025-10-10Bibliographically approved

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Redmalm, David

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