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Skill rebound: On an unintended effect of digitalization
ETH Zurich, Department of Computer Science, Zurich, Switzerland.
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Human Centered Technology, Media Technology and Interaction Design, MID.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2162-8353
2020 (English)In: ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) , 2020, p. 213-219Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Efficiency gains in economic processes often do not deliver the projected overall savings. Irrespective of whether the increase in efficiency saves energy, resources, time or transaction costs, there are various mechanisms that spur additional consumption as a consequence. These mechanisms are generically called rebound effects, and they are problematic from a sustainability perspective as they decrease or outweigh the environmental benefits of efficiency gains. Since one of the overarching purposes of digitalization is to increase efficiency, rebound effects are bound to occur frequently in its wake. Rebound effects of digitalization have been ignored until recently, but they have been increasingly studied lately. One particular mechanism of digital rebound, however, has been largely disregarded so far: the digitalization-induced lowered skill requirements needed to perform a specific activity. As with other types of rebound effects, this leads to an increase in the activity in question. In this paper, we propose the term skill rebound to denote this mechanism. We use the example of self-driving cars to show how digitalization can lower the skill bar for operating a vehicle, and how this opens 'driving' a car to entirely new socio-demographic categories such as elderly, children or even pets, leading to increased use of the (transportation) service in question and thus to rebound effects. We finally argue that these unintended environmental effects of skill rebound must be better understood and taken into account in the design of new digital technologies.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) , 2020. p. 213-219
Keywords [en]
autonomous vehicles, digital rebound, efficiency, energy, rebound effect, resources, self-driving cars, Environmental technology, Digital technologies, Efficiency gain, Environmental benefits, Skill requirements, Specific activity, Transaction cost, Sustainable development
National Category
Business Administration Transport Systems and Logistics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-301676DOI: 10.1145/3401335.3401362Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85090497596OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-301676DiVA, id: diva2:1594369
Conference
7th International Conference on ICT for SustainabilityJune 2020
Note

QC 20210915

Available from: 2021-09-15 Created: 2021-09-15 Last updated: 2024-01-10Bibliographically approved

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Pargman, Daniel

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
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  • Other style
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Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
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  • nn-NO
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Output format
  • html
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  • asciidoc
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