The researchers will launch a series of studies that can improve our understanding of the opportunities and risks in an individualised society that emphasises the values, needs and preferences of the individual. Their aim is not only to understand but also to design strategies that can help minimise the impact of the risks and take advantage of the opportunities in order to increase the resilience of both the individuals and the society.
Anna Ševčíková, the project leader, noted that the project team includes a wide range of experts from the social sciences as well as computer scientists. “We were looking for an intersection of what we know and can do in both of these disciplines and what we have in common. We found it in the topic of the individualisation of society. Indeed, the rapid spread of digital technologies has accelerated this long-term process, which brings opportunities but also risks for the society as a whole.”
Individualisation puts emphasis on making your own decisions. This can have a positive impact in that everyone can decide what they study, how and with whom they live and what they do. Digital technologies take this to the next level and allow for the individualisation of many areas of life from the content one sees on social media to healthcare and educational opportunities.
Doing it all our own
The combination of individualisation and digitalisation brings great possibilities and opportunities as well as equally great challenges. “The experience that people gain with the family, the government and various government institutions is now much more diverse than it used to be. These diverse experiences are shared through media with individualised content, which leads to a feeling that the media and other traditional sources of information about the world are not that relevant, to a decrease in trust and to a feeling of alienation. Ultimately, it can threaten the social cohesion of the Czech society,” says Ševčíková, pointing out the downsides of this phenomenon.
With the ability to make choices comes, of course, the responsibility for those choices. This increases the demands on individuals and their ability to cope with life´s – and global – challenges.
The second risk of the individualisation of society is that the ability to make decisions for oneself naturally comes with responsibility for those decisions. This increases the demands on individuals and their ability to cope with life´s, and global challenges, such as climate change, the rise of artificial intelligence, war and ageing populations.
“The title of our project, ´doing it all on our own´, refers to a question we are asking: Does the emphasis on the individualisation of society mean that individuals are expected to make decisions that they cannot, by definition, make on their own and that require trusted social institutions?” adds Ševčíková.
Intergenerational relations and research methodology
As the research topic is very broad, the researchers divided it into four research objectives. The first objective is family and intergenerational ties, focusing on partner relationships, reproduction and intergenerational relationships and care. The second objective will address aspects of the mental health, such as self-care in the context of digital technologies, technostress and artificial intelligence in the context of looking up health information and summarizing the content of psychotherapy sessions. The third area of research will address the polarisation in society, including social inequalities and the strategies for reducing them. The last research objective focuses on research methods, because the individualized society poses numerous challenges to the traditional methods of data collection. In this objective, the researchers will examine ways to improve the quality of the collected data and to personalise the assessments.
Focus on care
Much of the research focuses on care, both self-care and intergenerational care. “There is already a lot of emphasis on self-care. Prevention the dwindling resources and personal responsibility for health are some of the topics under discussion. This certainly has its benefits in that there is a greater chance that people will age in good health. On the other hand, there are big challenges related to raising awareness, trust in information and institutions and trust in digital technologies that help us monitor our health and lifestyle,” says Ševčíková.
However, the changing values and the emphasis on individual freedom and decision-making are also reflected in intergenerational care. Individualisation has led to very specific life trajectories, such as late motherhood and parenthood or staying single life, and this is also reflected in intergenerational care, whether it is relying on the help of the grandparents to balance the family and professional life or, conversely, providing care for ageing parents and grandparents.
By mapping intergenerational care and relationships, the researchers hope to find opportunities and tools to mitigate the intergenerational conflict.
“By focusing on the issues of care and intergenerational coexistence, we hope to identify vulnerable populations who are falling through the net of individual and institutional support. As society becomes more individualistic, there is an increased risk that the community that would have previously been able to help those in need simply won´t be there.” The researchers hope that in mapping the intergenerational care and relationships, they will be able to find opportunities and tools to mitigate intergenerational conflict and build bridges between generations with very different and often non-transferable life experience.
From research to practice
In addition to new society-wide surveys and research, the experts want to draw on data from ongoing and previously completed projects at the Faculty of Social Studies as well as at the other institutions involved. These include the MU Faculty of Informatics and various departments of Charles University, Mendel University, Brno University of Technology and the Institute of Psychology of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
The reasearchers in this project are also members of various working groups, including some at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, and work with non-profits which will help translate the results of the project into government policies and the way non-profit organizations work.