The unintended consequences of summer school 2024, Gina Halliwell
Gina Halliwell, who attended the 2024 Digital Good Network Summer School, reflects on how she learnt more than she expected from the experience. Published 20 August 2024.
I am a full-time PhD researcher in Psychology at Staffordshire University focusing on children’s online safety and digital resilience. I am also a part-time lecturer at Staffordshire University for undergraduate Psychology courses.
I attended the ESRC Digital Good Network Summer School in June 2024.
When I got the email in March to say that I had been accepted into the Summer School I was excited for the opportunity. The usual events I get to attend sit within Psychology; however, this promised engagement with other disciplines. I had never been to a summer school before, and I wasn’t sure what to expect but the agenda looked like it was going to be an interesting three days.
We started Monday off with a Pecha Kucha morning where all the students had to present their research in two minutes, showing how we all linked to the Digital Good. This was a great start to get to know everyone and to hear about the breadth of research across our group from social media and wellbeing, online misogyny, the use of AI, and using digital technology to facilitate queer digital spaces.
After talking about our own research, the rest of the event let us see the other types of research being carried out in the digital world. One of the sessions involved discussing three very different journal articles and how these linked to the Digital Good. I found these discussions informative as the papers came from topics different from mine, but they also made me reflect on my own research.
The idea of ‘unintended consequences’ was present during these discussions, based on the article Unintended by Design: On the Political Uses of “Unintended Consequences” (Parvin & Pollock, 2020), and introduced to us by Dr Ros Williams. The theme continued through the rest of the summer school and provoked more than I had expected in terms of my own work.
The article discusses the challenges of consequences of an action and how these may be unintended or unanticipated. However, the article takes this discussion further, considering the idea that consequences that were unintended may not always be unanticipated.
During this session we discussed that, whilst research that is inter-disciplinary and/or multidisciplinary have intended consequences, there can be unintended consequences, which can be positive or negative. We recognised that researchers need to be aware of the consequences of their research so that they can address them if they were negative, or replicate them in future research if there were positive.
We also discussed how the time we could spend on identifying possible unintended consequences in research can be impacted by external pressures – such as funding, publication or deadlines.
For my research, this discussion has made me reflect on the pressures schools already feel and how, whilst my research intends to support children’s online safety, my presence as a researcher may have unintended consequences – particularly for the children’s current learning and the pressures already present on the school timetable. I have resolved to work with schools in a way which ensures my research is mutually beneficial, and where unintended consequences are limited but have been anticipated and addressed.
The summer school was already a beneficial experience for me at this stage of my career because of getting to hear the perspectives of sociologists, computer scientists and researchers focusing on policy. However, it also prompted me to reflect on my own research from other perspectives, resulting in important learning and development which I will take forward into my work.
About the author
Gina Halliwell
Gina Halliwell is a full-time PhD researcher in psychology at Staffordshire University focusing on developing children’s digital resilience. She is also a part-time lecturer in psychology at Staffordshire University. As a qualified primary school teacher, her research is influenced by psychology and education and her interest in children’s online safety stems from experiencing the primary computing curriculum and recognising that children need more opportunities develop skills to recognise, manage and recover from online risks. Gina attended the 2024 Digital Good Network Summer School to broaden her awareness of digital research across different disciplines.