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Deception as digital emotional labor: The use of welfare technology in dementia care

Author(s): David Redmalm, Clara Iversen, Marcus Persson, Elin Thunman

Thursday 15  |   10:40-11:00

Room: TP51

Session: Care and technologies in a digitalised society

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.