La sociedad digital a la luz de las experiencias de trabajo de los desarrolladores de software

doi:10.5477/cis/reis.190.41-60 Digital Society as Seen through The Work Experiences of Software Developers La sociedad digital a la luz de las experiencias de trabajo de los desarrolladores de software Eduardo Bericat and Julia Acosta Key words Digital Society • Lived Experiences • Analysis of Experiences • Digitalisation • Sociology of Work • Digital Transformation Abstract Software developers, most of whom are young and male, play a key role in the digital transformation of our societies. They translate and transfer traditional analogue operations into their corresponding digital counterparts. Despite the importance of this socially creative process, it often goes unnoticed or remains hidden from the eyes of the general public. Applying the analysis of lived experiences method, the study analyses the digital transformation process through the work experiences of software developers. Their life stories shed light on key structural aspects of the digital society and reflect the tensions inherent in this transformative process. At the same time, they reveal the dual or Janus-faced nature of every individual’s life experience during a period of profound socio-digital transformation. Palabras clave Sociedad digital • Experiencias de vida • Análisis de experiencias • Digitalización • Sociología del trabajo • Transformación digital Resumen Los desarrolladores de software, en su mayoría jóvenes y varones, desempeñan un papel clave en la transformación digital de nuestras sociedades. Ellos son quienes traducen y transfieren las operaciones analógicas tradicionales a su correspondiente versión digital. A pesar de su importancia, este inmenso proceso de creatividad social suele pasar desapercibido o permanece oculto a los ojos del público en general. Aplicando el método del Análisis de Experiencias de Vida (AEx), el estudio analiza el proceso de transformación digital a través de las experiencias de trabajo de los desarrolladores de software. Los relatos de sus vivencias revelan aspectos estructurales clave de la sociedad digital y reflejan las tensiones inherentes a este proceso transformador. Al mismo tiempo, muestran la naturaleza dual o jánica de la experiencia de vida de todos los individuos en una época de profunda transformación sociodigital. Citation Bericat, Eduardo; Acosta, Julia (2025). «Digital Society as Seen through the Work Experiences of Software Developers». Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 190: 41-60. (doi: 10.5477/cis/ reis.190.41-60) Eduardo Bericat: Universidad de Sevilla | [email protected] Julia Acosta: Universidad de la República (Uruguay) | [email protected] Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 42 Digital Society as Seen through The Work Experiences of Software Developers Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 IntroductIon From the 1960s onwards, philosophers and social scientists observed that modern society could not be explained by its opposition to traditional society alone. This gave rise to new theories of society, such as post-industrial society (Bell, 1973), post-modernity (Lyotard, 1979; Jameson, 1984) and liquid modernity (Bauman, 2003). The new information and communications technology (ICT) emerged as the great transforming forces of that era, leading to the concept of the “information society” (Castells, 1996), which eventually became established as the reference standard for the emerging social system (Bericat, 1996). There also seemed to be close affinity between ICTbased societies and the cultural, social, economic and political features attributed to post-modernity (Bericat, 2003). However, ICT has continued to evolve, leading to what we now call “digital society” (Lupton, 2014). The first three books published under the title Digital Sociology (Orton-Johnson and Prior, 2013; Lupton, 2014; Marres, 2017) saw the light of day approximately a decade ago. In her book, Deborah Lupton (2014: 1) flatly stated that “life is digital”, that “we live in a digital society”, and that new digital technologies profoundly alter everyday life, social relations, government, commerce, the economy, and the production and dissemination of knowledge. She also noted that “we have reached a point where digital technologies’ ubiquity and pervasiveness are such that they have become invisible” (Lupton, 2014: 2). Digital society has been extensively studied by scientists such as Carr (2010), who analysed the impact of the Internet on cognition, and Schwab (2016), who explored the consequences of robotics and artificial intelligence. Other studies, including those by Pariser (2011) and O’Neil (2016), have focused on the social and ethical implications of algorithms and personalisation on the Internet. Within this new configuration, digital capitalism (Schiller, 1999; Fuchs, 2014) and platform capitalism (Srnicek, 2017) have emerged as systems in which data and digital information processing have been the main economic resources that have transformed both consumption and labour relations (Casilli, 2021; Abdelnour and Medá, 2020). Much recent research on work in the digital society, such as that on the deployment of algorithmic management and workers’ resistance to it (Dupuis, 2024; Floros, 2024), has adopted these approaches. There are also many discourses against the fate of social digitalisation, such as Morozov’s (2015) criticism of technological solutionism, a discourse that naively claims that technology can solve all our problems by itself. This study aims to make a specific contribution to the field of digital society research by analysing the work-life experiences of a group of mostly male and young professionals who play a key role in the functioning and digital transformation of organisations and society at large. Coders, computer programmers and software developers are deemed to be the architects and builders of this new society (Thompson, 2019; Himanen, 2004). They are, in effect, in charge of translating and transferring all traditional analogue operations and action systems into their corresponding digital counterpart; this is the essence of digital transformation. It is our understanding that digital transformation is a process that reconfigures social and work structures, and as such, it can be understood through the experiences of these workers. To visualise this process of analogue-to-digital translation which is weaving the infrastructure of the new society and enabling digital transformation, Eduardo Bericat and Julia Acosta 43 Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 a study was required that extended beyond a mere analysis of the objective conditions of work activity. It was necessary to study the nature of this work as seen through the experiences of the workers themselves. The analysis of their experiences would provide objective and subjective parameters to be combined within a single view. It would also make it possible to see the worker not only as a passive subject exposed to multiple external constraints, but also as a subject with agency who incorporated their own subjectivity into their work. Ultimately, the narratives emerging from their experiences would capture the meaning and emotional content implicit in their work tasks and practices, and would enable us to outline a prototype or character of an individual in digital transformation. While the analysis of the lived experiences of software developers was the first objective of this research, it was not its ultimate goal. The selection of these professionals was justified because, given their key role in this process of social transformation, an analysis of their personal experiences could reveal some key structural features of digital society. In other words, we aimed to analyse the process of digital transformation as seen through the experiences of these professionals, and to provide a sociological reflection on it. The article is organised in several sections. The first section provides a detailed description of the lived experiences analysis method. This is followed by an ideal-typical synthesis of the work experience of software developers. The third section engages in sociological reflection on the digital society based on the eight experiential foci revealed by the analysis. After proposing three key features of digital society for academic discussion, the article offers some conclusions that link the findings to the current process of social digitisation. the method: analysIs of lIved experIences (aex) The central argument that Wright Mills made in his classic work The Sociological Imagination (1959) was that individual (micro) experiences are inextricably linked to the sociohistorical (macro) context, and therefore, knowledge of individual experiences necessarily leads to knowledge of social structures. Using his terminology, private personal troubles are connected to public social issues. In short, for Mills, the fundamental task of a sociologist is to make the links between the two levels of reality intelligible. Although experience as an ontological and epistemological category has given rise to much philosophical reflection, as well as to endless debates motivated by its inherently polysemic nature (Jay, 2005), this is not usually the explicit and primary object of sociological research. So far, with some exceptions, it has not been the focus of important methodological debates in the field either. The analysis of lived experiences that was used in this research presupposes that the observation and understanding of the experiences of specific individuals offers a distinctive way of understanding social phenomena. This method is inspired by the idea of experience that John Dewey developed in Art as Experience (1934). Instead of referring to human existence in general, he referred to “an experience”, i.e. to specific life experiences, lived by specific individuals. Examples included going on a journey, solving a problem, enjoying a work of art, undergoing an illness or having a job interview. The lives of individuals do not consist of an undifferentiated, continuous and chaotic flow of facts and events without unity, order or meaning: human beings wrap our lives into experiences. As we do when moving to another house, we organise all our 44 Digital Society as Seen through The Work Experiences of Software Developers Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 things into boxes containing a diverse set of items that bear a relationship to each other within our life. Each experience, that is, an individual experience, includes facts, objects, people, relationships, ideas, emotions, memories, actions, judgements, accidents, desires, places or dreams that subjectively configure a unified and coherent life space, a timeline that can be captured by a narrative or a story, and a meaning reflected in the emotional content of the experience. The key methodological features of the analysis of lived experiences are as follows: - It gives primacy to subjectivity. It studies social reality as it is lived, perceived, thought about, felt, imagined, evaluated or desired by individuals (phenomenological perspective). - It is based on the observation of concrete social realities, of facts or events that happen to specific people (empiricist principle). - It considers human experiences as complete and complex life processes, whose nature and dynamics depend on the set of elements they contain (holistic approach). - It does not approach or prejudge the nature of the phenomena under study using a closed system of pre-established ideas or theories (principle of openness). - It focuses on those aspects of the world that the subject considers emotionally relevant (individual-centred view). Many social sciences and sociology researchers have focused their work on the individual and collective study of experiences. Paradigmatic examples include Thompson’s (1978) analysis of experience in the formation of the English working class; Collins’ (1986, 1990) epistemological value of experience in the empowerment of African American women; Dubet’s (2010, 2011) studies of the social experience of young people in the French suburbs; and Rosa’s (2019) critical sociology, which places resonant in contrast to alienating experiences. In the field of work, a variety of workers’ experiences have been investigated. A classic study is that by Burawoy (1979), who analysed how workers consented to or resisted the labour conditions imposed by capital in factory processes. Similarly, Floros (2024) examined how domestic cleaning platform workers experience and resist algorithmic management. Although our study on work experience is more limited, we believe it is still relevant. The analysis of lived experiences, inspired by pragmatist and phenomenological approaches, combines methodological orientations from narrative analysis, grounded theory and life history theory. However, it is a distinctive approach, as it brings the focus of sociological research onto the study of specific experiences. Unlike life histories, which usually take a biographical approach, the analysis of lived experiences does not take the life of an individual as its object of study. The article by Charriez (2012) provided an excellent synthesis of the life history method. This method seeks to understand a person or persons by compiling each and every one of the changes that have occurred throughout their lives, combined with an analysis of their own interpretations and life narratives. However, unlike life histories, which are part of the biographical approach, the object of study of the analysis of lived experiences is not people or individuals, but the experiences themselves, whether lived individually or collectively. Although some practical areas use the study of specific experiences, such as consumer experiences (Caru and Cova, 2007) or empathy maps (Gray, Brown and Macanufo, 2010), the analysis of lived experiences does not pursue a commercial or utilitarian purpose, but rather contributes to Eduardo Bericat and Julia Acosta 45 Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 the knowledge and understanding of relevant social phenomena. The methodological design followed included three phases: 1) selecting, contacting and interviewing professionals; 2) constructing a work experience narrative for each worker from the material collected from these interviews; and 3) subsequently analysing these lived narratives in order to extract both an ideal-typical synthesis of their experience and their key experiential focuses. In total, fifteen IT professionals involved in software development were interviewed and their work experiences reconstructed. Most of them were engineers, programmers or software developers, who had work links with companies of different sizes in Spain and abroad, mainly in the United States and Germany. In this first study, men aged twenty-three to forty were selected. The choice of this type of sample was due to the predominant demographics in this technology sector, where the majority of workers are young men. According to data from the 2023 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 84.6% of developers were under 44 years old, compared to 49.3% of the total working population in Spain, according to INE data (Q2 2023). In addition, the Stack Overflow Developer Survey in 2022 revealed that 91% of developers in Spain were male. This choice therefore made it possible to accurately capture the typical experiences of this group, which currently lies at the operational core of digital transformation. Recruitment was carried out via the LinkedIn platform. The Sales Navigator version enabled us to select the sector (software development) and geographic location (Spain). The semi-structured interviews, which lasted between fifty and seventy-five minutes, focused on work experience. They took place between 6 and 22 February 2023. the workIng experIence of the software developers In the book The Corrosion of Character, Richard Sennett (2000) argued that a mere change in the articulation of time in the new capitalism, compared to the preceding industrial capitalism, has important personal consequences. From a society based on the long term, which made it possible to implement stable personal projects, establish solid social ties and develop a sense of ethics that could be transmitted across generations, there has been a shift to a society built around the short term, in which people are at the mercy of changing winds, weak social ties, lack of trust, lack of commitments, multiple uncertainties, generalised vulnerability and a radical contingency that affects all areas of existence. By contrasting the life experiences of Enrico, a humble cleaner in an inner-city office building, with those of his son Rico, an electrical engineering graduate who enjoyed more than acceptable professional success, Sennett presented the thesis of the corrosion of character. In the temporal conditions of the new capitalism, it is almost impossible to feel or believe that personal experience, now composed of a mere aggregation of disjointed episodes, can articulate a complete and coherent biographical narrative that gives sufficient meaning and consistency to life. Following Sennett, and recognising the central role they play in the operational core of digital transformation, we analysed the work experiences and personal qualities of software developers. This was based on the understanding that the tensions they experience may reveal some elements of the ethos that characterise contemporary individuals. Therefore, we outline below the ideal Weberian type of work experience of these professionals. In general, given their high qualifications, their high market power, the demand for their services and the high 46 Digital Society as Seen through The Work Experiences of Software Developers Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 intellectual content of their tasks, the interviewees’ narratives provide an idealised view of the profession. However, beneath the idyllic tone of their aesthetic experiences, major problems and job dissatisfaction loom large. The ideal-typical experience The lived work experience of software developers essentially revolves around the task of designing software by using appropriate languages and logical structures, the code that underpins the operation of applications1. This goal is unattainable by merely performing routine tasks, as there are no recipes or protocols applicable to the design and construction of the software that each customer demands. In general, they have to create something from nothing, which requires a great deal of effort, intellectual capacity and ingenuity. They must find solutions and solve problems (solution-oriented job). These tasks are usually as difficult as they are complex, and continuously facing these challenges puts them under constant stress. As the technologies they work with are constantly changing, they need to keep up with new developments literally on a daily basis. They must be self-taught and learn as they go along. The sword of Damocles hanging over their heads is both professional and personal obsolescence. The speed of change is such that the fear of being left behind, or stranded, causes them intense uncertainty and anxiety. 1 This section provides a very concise synthesis of the full analysis of the lived work experiences of these professionals. In order to focus the reader’s attention appropriately, all terms referring to conceptual categories or key parameters of this ideal-typical experience are included in italics. However, their computer skills, as well as their ability to design code using the most advanced technologies, give them considerable market power and a great deal of satisfaction derived from the social utility of their knowledge. Achievements are a key element of their experience. The passion they bring to their work, the enthusiasm with which they tackle their tasks and the enjoyment they find in their profession are partly fuelled by the self-esteem and emotional energy ‘boosts’ they experience from the success of their projects. Achievements drive the commitment and intrinsic motivation that is critical in their professional roles, as these occupations demand strong engagement from the worker’s subjectivity. Software developers deeply admire colleagues who have been able to create very complex, yet elegant, simple and functional structures. They feel a kind of awe and devotion to a job well done. They value excellence. The logic of software is an incomprehensible mystery to the users of their programmes, but they know very well, and see on a daily basis, that the magic is effective and works. Thanks to apps, digital society citizens can perform a multitude of extremely complex tasks in a simple or quasi-automatic way. When their customers or users recognise the practical usefulness and good functioning of their codes, they feel special, important, useful and fulfilled, both personally and professionally. Being appreciated by customers is a priceless emotional reward. It is also evidences that they understood and addressed the customer’s exact requirements successfully, proving that their programmed creature has come to life and operates in the real world. In this way, they feel like true creators. Work, far from consisting of the mere performance of a series of instrumental and objective tasks, is transformed into Eduardo Bericat and Julia Acosta 47 Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 an authentic aesthetic experience (Dewey, 2005), the consummation of which provokes immense joy. The successful completion of their projects depends strictly on this mutation of their work, which now takes on a personal and subjective nature. Software developers approach their work projects from a strong, involved, free, creative and self-determined I. Companies, large or small, encourage the subjectification and individuation of workers by granting them broad autonomy over their means of labour, but only provided that they apply them to the ends exogenously set by them. The codes they create must serve the purpose set by some boss or customer (power principle), and they must predetermine sets of operations that fit and function in objective reality (reality principle). Judging by their accounts, developers are not very aware of the contradiction between worker subjectivity (autonomy of means) and external, objective constraints (heteronomy of ends). Although they feel they are scientists and artists, they do not enjoy the same freedom in their choice of goals. Developers assume that, like mathematics and logic, the codes they create are pristine, pure and perfect. But their work experience repeatedly confirms that they are not without error. Code failures that can cause serious malfunctions and dire consequences for customers and users are known as incidents. These are urgent problems that need to be tackled immediately and cause them a high level of work-related stress. These professionals feel like they are demiurges. But, like the rest of the gods, they never imagine that they will have to face the evil that they themselves, albeit unknowingly, bring into their creatures. The ideal world to which computer codes aspire, like genetic, moral or legal codes, exists only in the mind of their creator. Despite the strength of their “self”, and the hegemonic discourses underpinning job individuation, developers are acutely aware of their personal limitations and their inability to tackle projects alone. Hence the appreciation they show for colleagues in their work team and for the members of their professional community. Projects are the basic functional units of their socio-productive system. They support their aesthetic experiences, keep intrinsic motivation alive and serve business purposes as an individualised mode of labour market entry that allows the fragmentation of this powerful professional group. While software developers tend to enjoy good objective working conditions, they attach great importance to the subjective nature of work performance, which must be in line with their values, desires and demands. The job must offer them the opportunity to experience the work as an aesthetic experience. Flexibility at work, the sense of freedom, the option of working from home, of feeling respected, of doing truly useful things, the balance between work and personal life, the opportunity to travel, the ability to choose projects they like and are interested in, and the search for meaning are some of their work demands, which they identify as being life demands. In addition to the value they place on work teams, they have a deep sense of belonging to a global, open, free and collaborative community of programmers. These individualised workers find in this community the instrumental support they need to overcome their professional challenges, in the form of guides, knowledge, techniques and ways of doing things. In the face of the unease generated by the construction of a world moving towards an unknown destination, this imagined 48 Digital Society as Seen through The Work Experiences of Software Developers Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 and ideal community, with its rules, struggles between worldviews, gurus and even prophets, instils in them a collective sense of mission. The weight of responsibility that these professionals assume as architects of the new digital society is also palpable in their accounts of their work experiences. focI of experIence In dIgItal socIety Eight foci were identified in the accounts made by the software developers about their work experiences. These can be a starting point from which to sociologically reflect on digital society. The foci of experience are locations where life energies converge from various fields and sources. They emit enough light to illuminate aspects of reality that might otherwise go unnoticed or remain hidden. This is why Dubet (2010) called for a fruitful dialogue between experienced reality and sociological knowledge. Collins (1986: 29) argued that experiential reality provides as a valid source of knowledge for critiquing sociological facts and theories, while “sociological thought offers new ways of seeing that experienced reality”. For them, experience and sociological theory are on the same level and complement each other. The principles of empiricism and openness that characterise the lived experiences method made it possible to capture contradictory elements of experience simultaneously within the same point of the research process, thereby revealing its fundamental duality. The four foci shown on the left in Figure 1 belong to the domain of subjectivity, agency and individuation, and each of them is placed in opposition to each of the four foci on the right, belonging to the domain of objectivity, structure and collectivity. Each subjective focus is appears in opposition to an objective one, and both are constitutive parts of the experience. The experience of individuals in societies that are experiencing a digital transformation has a Janus-faced nature. The metaphor of the god Janus, the god who gave his name to the beginning of the year (January), the two-faced god, the god of doors through which one enters and exits, the god of changes, steps and transformations, the god of beginnings and endings, makes total sense here because all individuals, including software developers, participate and play a role of builders in the creation of a new world. The personal experience of the challenge and the algorithmic code as a new social institution The Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (RAE) defines challenge as “an objective or undertaking that is difficult to carry out, which therefore constitutes a stimulus and a test for the person who faces it”. Software developers find overcoming a challenge very stimulating; in their case, this takes the form of finding programming solutions that make it possible to implement a predetermined chain of operations (job-oriented job). Luis2 (12/16) “likes challenges the most”, “overcoming them gives him complete satisfaction”. Juan (11/16) defined his work as “constantly facing new and different challenges”. And Alex (5/22) compared his work to mathematics: “there is a problem and you look for a solution”. Without challenges, both life and work slide dangerously down the slope of meaninglessness, monotony, boredom and te2 All names are fictitious. The data in brackets correspond to the coding used in the narratives. The first digit is the code allocated to the respondent, and the second digit to the paragraph number. Eduardo Bericat and Julia Acosta 49 Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 dium. Meeting challenges mitigates the disenchantment of the world denounced by Weber (1905) and masks the destruction of experience anticipated by Benjamin (1973). It aligns with the system’s need to foster intrinsic motivations that wholly engage the subject and promotes the exploration of innovative approaches during the socio-digital transformation phase. Overcoming challenges is a key focus of contemporary experience. According to Dubet (2010), the decline of institutions means that individuals have to personally articulate multiple logics of action and face the ensuing challenges. In the same vein, Martuccelli and Santiago (2017) rethought the contemporary individual from the perspective of the sociology of social challenges. The objective, structural and collective dimension of experience appears as soon as we focus our gaze on the product of work. Codes (algorithms, programmes, platforms) pre-order and predetermine infinite chains of operations of the social system. Software appears to be intangible, but it paradoxically becomes materialised as an extensive and dense network of codes that make up the infrastructure of digital society, a kind of underground sewage system. The overflowing subjectivity of the challenge is poured into the unappealable objectivity of the code, which weaves coercive structures into a peculiar iron cage. Not only well-known apps and platforms like Netflix, TikTok, Uber, Spotify, Tinder, Photoshop and ChatGPT, but also thousands of other digital operators we use daily in specific activity environments, organise available options, predetermine possible actions, and subtly influence our decisions without our being aware of it. Each of these digital operators, be they algorithms, applications or platforms, introduce changes in FIGURE 1. Foci of experience of software developers Source: Prepared by the authors. Challenges CommunityIndividual Achievements Creativity Errors Utility Codes 56 Digital Society as Seen through The Work Experiences of Software Developers Reis. Rev.Esp.Investig.Sociol. ISSN-L: 0210-5233. N.º 190, April - June 2025, pp.41-60 rithms now constitutes the real institutional infrastructure of the new digital society. The charm of digitalisation lies in its efficiency, as it allows very complex tasks to be carried out in a cost-effective, automatic and simple way. But the greatest danger comes from the fact that the black box at its operational core is outside public control and that it drastically and rapidly transforms the way we do everything. The social sciences must therefore redouble their efforts to understand and make clear both life in digital society and the social consequences of any digitalisation process. In short, we should encourage public attention and social alert mechanisms that allow for democratic and critical control to be placed over this profound social transformation. Given the socio-demographic profile of today’s software workers, this process of algorithmic creation is almost entirely dominated by young, male IT professionals, which results in women and older people being excluded from the digital configuration of society. The lived work experiences recorded in this study are therefore the experiences of the young, male developers that the system uses for its development. Regarding this blatant social exclusion, two fundamental tasks remain to be addressed. On the one hand, the work experiences of women and older people involved in the development of software should be analysed. On the other hand, the conditions that explain this occupational segregation should be investigated, as well as the educational and social policies that could eliminate it. 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