Digitalisation and public life: Professional interpretations of technology-mediated socio-spatial transformation
Technology in Society, cilt.89, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 89
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2026.103527
- Dergi Adı: Technology in Society
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Periodicals Index Online, Compendex, EBSCO Education Source, Geobase, INSPEC, Political Science Complete, Political Science Abstract (IPSA), Education Source Ultimate (EBSCO)
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Digitalisation, Expert interpretation, ICT use, Public life, Public space, Socio-spatial transformation
- Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
The rapid diffusion of digital technologies has reshaped public life by transforming patterns of interaction, co-presence, and social behaviour in urban environments. This study does not address these transformations in isolation; instead, it examines how spatial design professionals evaluate the behavioural consequences of digital technologies in relation to their conceptualisations of the functions of public space. Professional interpretation forms the core analytical focus of the study. More specifically, the analysis focuses on the relationship between experts' disciplinary orientations toward public space and their professional assessments of key behavioural dimensions in digitally mediated public life, including social isolation, media and digital effects, homogenisation/placelessness, social anxiety, and digital addiction. To this end, a quantitative modelling approach based on expert assessments was adopted. Parametric statistical methods, including Pearson correlation, linear regression, and multiple linear regression analyses, were used to examine the relationship between professionals’ evaluations of public space functions and their professional assessments of ICT-related behavioural impacts. The findings indicate that the importance experts assign to public space functions is a statistically significant but modest predictor of how they professionally assess the behavioural consequences of digital technologies in urban life. These associations appear across several dimensions, including social isolation, placelessness, digital addiction, social anxiety, and assessed media and digital effects. However, while orientations toward public space functions are associated with these assessments, the purposes of ICT use show limited predictive influence, with digital addiction emerging as the only dimension associated with specific technology-use purposes. Overall, professionals' assessments of digitalisation appear to be more closely related to how they understand the functions of public space than to their own purposes for using ICT. Digitalisation can therefore be understood as a socio-technical transformation whose implications for urban space and public life are interpreted through professional values and disciplinary understandings.