The digitalisation of everything, from how we think and analyse, to writing, communicating, networking, storing and sharing information, is resulting in increasing negative impacts on people and the planet. In 2024 alone, a billion mobile phones and 400 million personal computing devices were manufactured. They require huge amounts of minerals, from mines in ecologically vulnerable areas, and a workforce that labours under dangerous circumstances, and that, as in DR Congo, includes children. Our phones and devices are manufactured in countries where labour is cheap and environmental regulations often weak. When our phones and devices are no longer in use, they create environmental problems when they are not properly recycled and disposed.
The digitalisation of everything has also enabled breaches of privacy on a scale we have never experienced before. Participation in online social media and other platforms requires sharing personal information with the platform owners, who generate tremendous profits from using and selling our information. Social media platforms have also become important sites for influencing large groups of people, such as during elections and vaccination campaigns.
With the current AI hype, driven by huge investments (370 billion dollars in 2025) and promises of large profits, we will be pushed into an even more digitalised future. The question to be explored in this master’s thesis project is whether this is an unavoidable future or if another digital future is possible? And how would such a future look like?
There are different ways to address the question of another digital future. You can do it through an exploration of theories and initiatives, a speculative design installation, an interview-based approach or a combination of approaches.
Courses:
IN5190 – Design for Sustainability (Fall, 2025)
IN5010 – Design, Technology, Society (Spring, 2026)
Resources:
Johannessen, Leon Karlsen (n.d.). The Young Designer’s Guide to Speculative and Critical Design. Online:
https://www.ntnu.edu/documents/139799/1279149990/16+TPD4505.leon.johannessen.pdf/1c9221a2-2f1b-42fe-ba1f-24bb681be0cd
Peréa, C. et al. (2023). Digital sobriety: From awareness of the negative impacts of IT usages to degrowth technology at work. Online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122670
Macgilchrist, F. et al. (2024). Designing Postdigital Futures: Which Designs? Whose Futures? Online: https://doi-org.ezproxy.universitetetioslo.no/10.1007/s42438-022-00389-y
Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy and the making of worlds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Available as book or online via the University Library)
