Data anxieties: Finding trust in everyday digital mess

Abstract

Digital data is an increasing and continual presence across the sites, activities and relationships of everyday life. In this article we explore what data presence means for the ways that the everyday is organised, sensed, and anticipated. While digital data studies have demonstrated how data is deeply entangled with the way in which everyday life is lived out and valued, at the same time our relationships with data are riddled with anxieties or small niggles or tricky trade-offs and their use is often chaotic and muddled, part of the inevitable uncertainty about what will happen next. If the presence of data is part of the environments we inhabit, this raises the question of how and why data is valuable to us and what forms of hope and trust enable this value to further develop.

Defying shame

“…Like the former example, in which Amalie talked about sexual objectifi cation, she is concerned with managing her identity. She tries to do this by using the Facebook deactivate function to opt in and out of digital reality, and by creating routines connected to data safety (Pink, Lanzeni, & Horst, 2018). Despite this eff ort, Amalie is still aware that she cannot control her digital presence because the DSA images keep circulating.…”

Pesquisando co-viewing em redes sociais e aplicativos de mensagem instantânea: ética e desafios

“…De tal modo que o consentimento informado deva ser sempre uma questão a ser lembrada antes de se iniciar uma pesquisa em plataformas conectadas, pois os contextos online e offline estão geralmente interligados. Logo, durante as diferentes fases desta pesquisa, observou-se que qualquer tomada de decisão em espaços digitais envolve dados que podem revelar informações pessoais e delicadas de indivíduos (Markham & Buchanan, 2012) e, em alguns casos, causar-lhes ansiedade (Pink, Lanzeni & Horst, 2018).…”

“…Essa comparação, feita com os conjuntos de dados extraídos durante a observação participante, foi essencial, pois seguiu a lógica de que os dados de covisualização, como outros dados digitais, vão além da ideia de um arquivo. Essas atividades foram vistas como práticas humanas dinâmicas, em tempo real, que ocorrem em espaços digitais (Kitchin, 2014;Pink et al, 2018). Se eu não tivesse feito parte dos grupos e não participasse nas atividades de covisualização, seria quase impossível ler ou ter uma compreensão mais profunda do conteúdo e dos dados gerados durante as atividades de pré-visualização, covisualização e pós-visualização da telenovela.…”

Researching co-viewing on social media and instant messaging applications: ethics and challenges

“…This comparissom of participant observation with mined datasets was essential, as it followed the understanding that co-viewing data as other digital data go beyond the idea of an archive. These activities were seen as dynamic, real-time human practices that take place in digital spaces (Kitchin, 2014;Pink et al, 2018). If I was not part of the groups and did not participate in the co-viewing activities, it would be almost impossible to read or have a deeper understanding of the content and data generated during pre-viewing, co-viewing, and post-viewing activities.…”

“…Thus, informed consent should always be an issue to keep in mind before starting a research study on connected platforms, as online and offline contexts are often interwoven. Therefore, during the different phases of this research, it was noted that any decision-making while working within digital spaces involves data that could reveal sensitive information from individual persons (Markham & Buchanan, 2012) and in some cases cause anxiety (Pink, Lanzeni & Horst 2018).…”