The Master's Thesis by Giulia Santi, born within the DataChildMap project

Dr. Giulia Santi's master's thesis, which Prof. Juliana Raffaghelli is supervising, begins with a conceptual framework for the pervasive phenomena of datafication and platformization in contemporary society and occupies a crucial dimension that intersects with the investigative goals of the DataChildMap project: the impact of technology use on parenthood.

By combining the findings of a case study, empirical research, and a specific benchmarking analysis, conceptual knots of fundamental importance are brought to light for a new way of thinking about being a parent today. These knots stress how awareness, information, critical thinking, and responsibility are necessary to deal with (and avoid) privacy, profiling, and security risks. Ultimately, the dangers can compromise one's autonomy and the freedom of oneself and one's children.

Placed in the complicated picture of technology use and abuse, the thesis Learning to be parents in a datafied society: the impact of technologies on modern parenthood is a new research exploration that, in addition to adding to the investigation's scope, highlights the collaborative value between researchers and students that makes the DataChildMap project unique and always changing.

Here are Dr. Santi's answers to our interview!

What is one of the most relevant aspects of your thesis?

The aspect that particularly captured my interest concerns the very core of the work, namely the pervasiveness of datification in today's society and the associated risks related to children if not addressed through conscious parenthood. It is an unavoidable social issue, the understanding of which needs to be further explored and disseminated because only through conscious information can authentic tools and systems of prevention, responsibility, and protection be adopted. In delving deeper into this matter, I chose to adopt a case study through the conduct of empirical research aimed at analyzing pregnancy monitoring apps; through these, in fact, the datification of children begins even before their birth!

In this context, it was crucial to study the privacy policies of the various applications analyzed and understand how, at least in part, user-provided data is requested and used for purely commercial purposes. Doubtless, aninteresting aspect in terms of analysis and research, which at the same timerompted my personal critical reflection on the importance of using digital platforms consciously to avoid intrinsic risks and dangers.

In your opinion, which aspect was the most "complicated" that you developed in your work?

The critical aspect I encountered concerns the first phase of the empirical research. In this stage, characterized by the analysis of pregnancy monitoring apps, I administered an anonymous questionnaire to a group of parents attending a private early childhood education service (0-3 years) in the province of Padua. The aim was to understand the most used applications during the gestational period and the aspects of greater interest in their use. I emphasize that the questionnaire was addressed to both parents. I would have liked to also gather the perspective and experience of the father figure, but during the data collection phase, I found a very limited participation percentage from male participants.

What are the possible socio-cultural consequences of your analysis?

I consider it crucial to cultivate the dissemination and information of the analyzed phenomena related to datafication and platformization to adopt adequate prevention tools in today's society. During the in-depth reading of the various privacy policies provided by application developers, I observed that while these regulations are presented through articulate communicative-textual formulations, they lack a clear, transparent, and easily understandable language for stakeholders. As subsequently confirmed by the conducted empirical research, users of the application (in this case, pregnancy monitoring apps, but the thought applies to all applications in general!) are unaware of privacy policies, accepting terms of which they do not actually know the risks and dangers. Consequently, a socio-cultural drift is created that causes (and increasingly enhances!) passivity and misinformation among users, within a framework of "resigned acceptance" towards terms and services whose value is not understood. It is therefore necessary to become aware of this issue, cultivating the commitment to build new resolution methods in the educational perspective of restoring autonomy, rights, and responsibilities to citizens. This transformative commitment can generate support and novel caregiving skills, even for parenthood, which is the focus of investigation in this thesis.

        Curated by Romina Malghera and Maria Valentini