Digitalisation and technology acceptance: We need a democratisation of digital technologies

Digitalization and technology acceptance: We need a democratization of digital technologies

Prof. Dr. Nick Lin-Hi
University of Vechta

Published on 06 July 2019 in the Oldenburgische Volkszeitung

 "I am still surrounded by many colleagues who hope that all of this will go away with the Internet," said State Minister for Digitalization Dorothee Bär in a recent interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. Even if the statement is hopefully somewhat exaggerated, it does point to a fundamental phenomenon: people find it difficult to deal with (digital) change.

The reasons for this are very different. For some, it may be due to a fundamental fear of everything new and unknown, for others it could be due to the fact that they see their own comfort zone as being threatened by innovations.

Regardless of the individual reasons why we don't like change, there are good arguments for dealing with it. This is all the more true in the age of digitalization, which will bring about massive upheaval not only in all economic sectors, but also in all areas of life. Digitalization is already a reality today and can no longer be reversed.

The question of whether we want digitalization no longer arises in this form. Nevertheless, we still have the opportunity to help shape digitalization. We still have the chance to set the course so that as many people as possible can benefit from digital technologies and innovations. If we do not do this, then others will decide what our digital future will look like.

It is undisputed that digitalization will bring us a wide range of challenges, some of which we may not even be aware of yet. And yet digitalization is a huge opportunity for us humans. On the one hand, because it enables social progress in areas such as education, nutrition, health, communication and participation. On the other hand, however, because it may even be the only opportunity to achieve sustainable development and thus preserve the earth as a basis for life for future generations.

Given our unsustainable lifestyle and consumption patterns, we need disruptive approaches in as many areas as possible to drastically reduce the negative effects we cause on the environment. We will not be able to achieve sustainability by making things gradually better or less bad. The only viable way is to do things completely differently. And this is exactly what can only be achieved with digital innovations.

However, we will only be able to use the potential of digitalization if we manage to get people on board. If we do not manage to do this, we cannot hope for widespread acceptance of the technology among the population, as a result of which we will miss the opportunity to shape digitalization in a positive and proactive way. We must therefore take away people's fear of the new and at the same time show them that, in principle, everyone can benefit from digitalization in the long term. We therefore need a democratization of digital technologies in the form that everyone not only has access to them, but is also able to actually use them.

We need to shape this democratization and support and encourage people at a wide range of levels to participate in digitalization. Such democratization takes the abstract out of digitalization, making it tangible and real.