Voices from around the world on quality of life and well-being in the ICT society

2017 ◽  
pp. 70-89
Author(s):  
Gunilla Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Daniel T. L. Shek

AbstractCOVID-19 has severely affected the world since December 2020. Because of its sudden onset and highly contagious nature, the world has responded in a “crisis management” manner. With effective vaccines almost available, it is appropriate at this time to have some reflections about COVID-19 in relation to the quality of life issues. In this paper, we highlight twelve issues for reflection, which can help us better prepared for future pandemics. These include: digital divide, health inequality, gender inequality, economic disadvantage, family well-being, impact on holistic well-being, economic development versus saving lives, consumption versus environmental protection, individual rights versus collective rights, international collaboration versus conflict, prevention of negative well-being, and promotion of positive well-being.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4-1) ◽  
pp. 180-203
Author(s):  
Elena Stukalenko ◽  

Digital technologies, ubiquitous in our daily life, have radically changed the way we work, communicate, and consume in a short period of time. They affect all components of quality of life: well-being, work, health, education, social connections, environmental quality, the ability to participate and govern civil society, and so on. Digital transformation creates both opportunities and serious risks to the well-being of people. Researchers and statistical agencies around the world are facing a major challenge to develop new tools to analyze the impact of digital transformation on the well-being of the population. The risks are very diverse in nature and it is very difficult to identify the key factor. All researchers conclude that secure digital technologies significantly improve the lives of those who have the skills to use them and pose a serious risk of inequality for society, as they introduce a digital divide between those who have the skills to use them and those who do not. In the article, the author examines the risks created by digital technologies for some components of the quality of life (digital component of the quality of life), which are six main components: the digital quality of the population, providing the population with digital benefits, the labor market in the digital economy, the impact of digitalization on the social sphere, state electronic services for the population and the security of information activities. The study was carried out on the basis of the available statistical base and the results of research by scientists from different countries of the world. The risks of the digital economy cannot be ignored when pursuing state social policy. Attention is paid to government regulation aimed at reducing the negative consequences of digitalization through the prism of national, federal projects and other events.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-190
Author(s):  
R. Sh Gvetadze ◽  
V. D Wagner ◽  
G. E Amanaliti ◽  
Lyudmila E. Smirnova

According to the World Health Organization, the elderly are the fastest-growing age group in the world. Scientists addressing the aging issue have put forward a theory of active longevity, based on improving the quality of life of the elderly. Most authors believe that the basis of a long life is an active and mobile lifestyle, a healthy diet, abstinence from bad habits, constant communication and affordable quality health care. Recently, in our country, government officials began to pay attention to the problems of longevity and improving the quality of life of senior and elderly people. The Government of Moscow adopted a decision of December 18, 2018 No. 1578-GO “On the implementation of the Moscow Longevity Project in the city of Moscow”, which provides for a permanent basis to create a system of organizing active leisure activities for senior citizens, expanding forms of social communications, further enhancing their life and longevity. Recent studies show that the quality of life of people in the elderly and senile age is closely related to their health and cannot be limited to biomedical parameters. It depends on an assessment of one’s life course, internal standards, and on effective social activity. Also, quality of life is correlated with factors such as the diet and nutrition quality, the ability to perform physical activities that help reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases and mortality. At the same time, the importance of dental health remains underestimated, despite the fact that healthy mouth organs and tissues are the main factors contributing to quality nutrition, performing an aesthetic role and serving as a symbol of a person’s well-being.


Author(s):  
Marcin Piatkowski

In this chapter I assess the optimal way to measure countries’ economic performance and assert that changes in median income are a better measure than GDP. I also argue in favour of increased focus on measurement of well-being, quality of life, and happiness. I document Poland’s historically unprecedented success, increasing its income from around $10,300 in 1990 to almost $27,000 PPP in 2017, becoming the most successful economy in Europe and among its peers in the world. I claim that Poland’s economic success is unique because it was achieved despite the country’s lack of natural resources, low debt leverage, and a vibrant democracy. It is unique also because Poland’s growth was inclusive; it was the only democratic country in the post-Soviet camp in which 100 per cent of society increased their incomes faster than in the West. Higher incomes translated into the highest levels of well-being and happiness on record.


Author(s):  
Richard Kraut

The Quality of Life: Aristotle Revised presents a philosophical theory about the constituents of human well-being. It begins with Aristotle’s thoughts about this topic, but often modifies and sometimes rejects them. The principal idea is that what Aristotle calls “external goods” (wealth, reputation, power) have at most an indirect bearing on the quality of our lives. A good internal life—the way in which we experience the world—is what well-being consists in. Pleasure is one aspect of this experience, but only a small part of it. Far more valuable is the quality of our emotional, intellectual, social, and perceptual experiences. These aspects of our existence make it potentially richer and deeper than the quality of life available to many other animals. A good human life is immeasurably better than that of a simple creature that feels only the pleasures of nourishment. Even if it felt pleasure for millions of years, human life would be superior. Contemporary discussions of well-being often appeal to a thought experiment devised by Robert Nozick, which holds that we should not attach ourselves to an “experience machine”—a device that manipulates our brains and gives us any illusory experiences of our choosing. This is thought to show that one’s interior life has little or no value on its own; that we must live in “the real world” to live well. In fact, however, this thought experiment supports the opposite conclusion: the quality of our lives consists in the quality of our experiences.


2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 312-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocío Fernández-Ballesteros

Europe is the oldest continent in the world; in the year 2000, about 17% of Europeans (EU-15) were older than 65, and projections say that in the year 2025 one-fourth of the European population will have reached this age. Nevertheless, the threat to the population is not aging but disability; although life expectancy at birth is about 80, the expected number of years with disability runs from 5.7 to 7.2 years ( WHO, 2002 ). The United Nations recently approved the II International Plan of Action on Aging (MIPAA, UN, 2002) with special recommendation for the European region. This situation is highly demanding both for the science of psychology and for European psychologists. This article introduces a set of research programs - linked with the three priority directions of the MIPAA - as examples of how psychology is one of the disciplines calling for improved quality of life and well-being in old age and, therefore, GeroPsychology as an applied field should be consolidated in the next decades.


Technologies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Hamid Doost Mohammadian ◽  
Fatemeh Rezaie

Nowadays, we are on the cusp of a future that will face many global challenges and crises, as well as unforeseeable shocks of tomorrow. The rapid growth and development of technology will bring forth exponential change that may challenge and threaten our human psychology. Solutions and policies are needed to deal with today’s challenges, tomorrow’s shocks, and global crises to preserve the world and mankind for the future. In this research, Blue-Green sustainable mobility technologies are introduced as a pathway to create modern sustainable and livable urban areas to tackle these challenges. Clean and inclusive mobility, based on Blue-Green and sustainable infrastructure, low emission greenhouse gases, ubiquitous computing, smartness and digitalization is realized as one of the keys that could make the world a better place for living. This research examines inclusive transportation technology, its indicators and its impacts on creating modern livable urban areas with high a quality of life as a pathway to navigate the cusp of tomorrow. Furthermore, the roles of technology such as Information Technology, Internet of Things, Internet of Business, Internet of Manufacturing, and Internet of Energy as technology tools to develop such mobility is investigated. Literature reviews, surveys, case studies—including Songdo as a ubiquitous city and Copenhagen as a digital and clean city—and revised versions of Kiwi and Kampenhood and BESQoL (built environment sustainability and quality of life) methodologies are the main methods in this study. New concepts of mobility technology and eventuating cultural synergies, as a readiness for facing tomorrow’s world crises with a higher quality of life and well-being by using the 5th wave theory, are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6189
Author(s):  
José M. Núñez-Sánchez ◽  
Ramón Gómez-Chacón ◽  
Carmen Jambrino-Maldonado ◽  
Jerónimo García-Fernández

Employees’ health is being affected not only by the possibility of contracting COVID-19, but by all the negative consequences that this pandemic has brought, such as confinement, social distancing, and self-isolation. In recent decades, more companies have opted for corporate well-being programmes in their workplaces, improving the health and quality of life of their employees. The effects generated by the current COVID-19 pandemic require these programmes to adapt to this new situation. The objective of this case study is to analyse the corporate well-being programme, in times of COVID-19, of Mahou San Miguel, a benchmark company in corporate well-being in Spain. A mixed method approach to data collection was used. The findings show the benefits achieved in its adaptation to this new physical-virtual environment. This paper could help other companies around the world to adapt their corporate well-being programmes to the new reality brought about by COVID-19.


Author(s):  
Olga Fleitlikh ◽  

The relevance of the study of personal self-determination is evident in a changing society, as societal crises determine personal crises. Scientific publications demonstrate a tendency to increasingly operate such a construct as ‘mindset’, the essence of which is reduced to a view of reality based on the subjective experience of the individual. Researchers describe a process of active transformation of this construct under the influence of ideas of self-awareness. In this sense, mindset becomes one of main determinants of personal identity. The research question that became the starting point of the study concerns the role of the subjectively perceived environment in the experience of human psychological well-being. Correlation, variance and multiple regression analyses as well as mathematical statistics methods were used to process the data. As a result of the study, the assumption that there are statistically significant links between the level of stigmatisation assigned and quality of life in the world-image structure of transgender people was confirmed. The sources and forms of social support that emerged as leading for the study sample determine high levels of self-stig matisation. The more deeply stigmatising attitudes permeate the personality structure and are appropriated by the individual, the lower the transgender person’s assessment of their psychological well-being. People with different levels of self-stigmatisation experience only two criteria for psychological well-being differently, rather than all of its components. Stigmatisation impairs a transgender person’s social adjustment and leads to a decreased quality of life, linked, in our view, to the basic assumptions regarding security upon which the individual relies to shape the world.


2021 ◽  
pp. 263-269
Author(s):  
Hubert Österle

AbstractGovernmental and non-governmental organizations around the world are trying to shape socio-technical development, especially the use of information technology, for the benefit of people. They are developing ethical guidelines for the creation and evaluation of digital services. The discipline of Life Engineering must combine the knowledge of several disciplines, such as psychology, machine learning, economics, and ethics, so that technology serves people, i.e., contributes to well-being. Therefore, a solid understanding of quality of life should be the starting point, explaining the patterns of human behavior and their impact on well-being. Digital services of all kinds provide increasingly detailed digital twins and give us the opportunity to operationalize ethical principles.


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