Imagine! Ethical Digital Technology for Everyone

You will find in this book a fascinating critical analysis about digital technology from a humanistic perspective.... You will enjoy pictures, poems, stories, and quotations that should encourage self-reflection and community discussion about your real life, your digital life, and the role of technology in society..... This book is oriented towards anyone and everyone, breaking the academic and professional barriers thereby increasing universal awareness of the importance of the ethical concerns surrounding digital technology.―Mario Arias Oliva, Profesor Titular de Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Our dependency on digital technology keeps growing. Are we happy with this? Do we understand the positives and negatives of being so dependent? Imagine! Ethical Digital Technology for Everyone will help everyone to better understand these issues through the use of stories, pictures and poems which explore the world of digital technology. The aim is to demystify and encourage the reader to reflect on how to get the best out of digital technology, but not at the expense of others or of the world at large. This unique book has something for everyone regardless of age, background or technological awareness. It will help to give the reader the confidence to challenge societally unacceptable and promote societally beneficial digital technology offerings.

The book is a meeting between technology and the creative arts as our lives become more and more technologically dependent. It aligns with the transition of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics), which aims to promote creativity and curiosity. The book has four facets: short stories, quotations, pictures (many of which are schematics) and poetry about the social and ethical issues surrounding digital technology.

Through a lens of creative arts, the book maps the evolution of digital technology from its infancy through to glimpses of the future. This includes many first-hand examples from the 1970s onwards. Alongside this account, surrounding ethical and social issues are portrayed. These two elements are synthesized to encourage thought about how the challenges of evolving digital technology can be met thus leading to social benefit for all of us.

Simon Rogerson has an industrial and academic background. He became Europe’s first Professor in Computer Ethics in 1998 and in 2010 became lifetime Professor Emeritus in Computer Ethics at De Montfort University, UK. He was the founding Director of the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (CCSR), launching it in 1995 at the first ETHICOMP conference which he conceived and co-directed until 2013. He was the founder and editor until 2021 of the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. He sits on several international ICT-related advisory boards and has served on governing bodies in education and ICT.