Integrative Objects in Sociotechnical Contexts: Constructing Digital Well-Being with Generic Epistemology

Title of the Literature

Integrative Objects in Sociotechnical Contexts: Constructing Digital Well-Being with Generic Epistemology

Bibliographic Information

• Subject Areas: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), interdisciplinary collaboration, digital well-being, sociotechnical phenomena
• Keywords: generic epistemology, interdisciplinary, digital well-being, integrative objects, sociotechnical objects, critical theory, collaborative practice

Research Background and Issues

• Challenges and Issues:

  • Current sociotechnical phenomena (e.g., digital well-being) are characterized by complexity, multi-scale, and interdisciplinary features. Traditional single-discipline research often fails to comprehensively address these issues.
  • Interdisciplinary research faces differences in language, methods, and logic, which can lead to "fragmentation" or "disciplinary conflicts."
  • Digital well-being is often fragmented by different disciplines, such as psychology focusing on individual-level "health diagnosis," philosophy exploring ethical issues, and sociology emphasizing the social impacts of technology. These divisions limit the comprehensiveness of problem-solving.

• Significance:

  • The impact of digital well-being is expanding across social and technological dimensions, involving multiple aspects such as ethics, psychology, and social structures. Without a comprehensive perspective, it will affect the design of "healthy" technologies, policy-making, and the overall environment of technological dependence.

• Research Motivation:

  • Reflecting on past collaborative experiences, the author found that simple interdisciplinary integration cannot fully explore the complexity of digital well-being. Thus, the concepts of "generic epistemology" and "integrative objects" are introduced to overcome the limitations of interdisciplinary research approaches.
  • Like other sociotechnical issues (e.g., artificial intelligence, fairness in computing), digital well-being is essentially an "integrative object" that cannot be fully defined or resolved through single-discipline theories or existing interdisciplinary integrations.

Solution

• Core Methods:

  • Define "integrative objects": These objects exceed the capabilities of single-discipline or even interdisciplinary research and require research detached from disciplinary norms.
  • Introduce "generic epistemology": A conceptual and practical framework that reimagines the relationships between disciplines, providing space for autonomous research on complex issues.
  • Adopt non-hierarchical, non-dogmatic research strategies to create a "collective cognitive space" based on collaborative practices.

• Innovations:

  • The core innovation is "disciplinary underdetermination," extracting fragmented knowledge from various disciplines and reconstructing objects in a non-normative space.
  • Propose "experimental texts" and "fiction methods" as tools for exploring future possibilities, aimed at generating new perspectives rather than validation.

• Implementation Steps:

  1. Establish Research Framework:
     • Define digital well-being as an "integrative object," clarifying its complexity and the limitations of interdisciplinary research.
  2. Deconstruct and Analyze Disciplinary Components:
     • Deconstruct internal components of disciplines: academic goals, temporality, organizational logic, mainstream cognitive standards, etc.
  3. Create and Explore New Research Hypotheses:
     • Develop "theories of intermediate scope."
     • Design expandable dimensions and new research models for "digital well-being."
  4. Practice Fiction Methodology:
     • Strip key attributes from objects to propose new research questions or design perspectives.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:

  • Redefined digital well-being as an "integrative object," demonstrating how new knowledge dimensions with future significance can be generated from interdisciplinary fragments.
  • Developed initial dialogue guidelines for interdisciplinary collaboration (e.g., motivation, temporality, terminology, value standards).
  • Provided specific techniques for conceptual expansion, such as "de-key attribute" analysis of digital well-being (e.g., digital well-being without user dimensions or temporality).

• Advantages and Comparisons:

  • Compared to existing interdisciplinary research, "generic epistemology" is not constrained by traditional disciplinary logic, enabling the formation of more open and democratic knowledge spaces.
  • Advocates and practices "anti-solutionism" design thinking, focusing more on problem definition and future potential rather than purely functional solutions.

• Experimental and Evaluation Results:

  • Based on the author's collaboration in fields such as computer science and critical theory, the study verified how fragmented knowledge from various disciplines can independently constitute research parameters, generating new hypotheses for digital well-being through non-normative combinations.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations:
    • Current research is influenced by publication requirements, which may lean more towards academic norms rather than fully entering the "generic" space.
    • Fiction methods require a high level of abstraction and cognitive training.
  • Future Directions:
    • Further study whether other complex sociotechnical issues (e.g., fairness in computing, platform governance) meet the definition of "integrative objects."
    • Promote the application of "experimental texts" and "fiction practices" in design fields.
    • Explore ways to better balance disciplinary publication demands and open exploration logic in actual research practices.

Through this paper, the author provides new pathways to address the limitations of interdisciplinary research and proposes more tools and perspectives for future studies on complex objects.