Digital Food Technologies and Our Everyday Lives

Abstract: Amidst the present Covid-19 pandemic, consumer interactions with digital food technologies have expedited. This thesis examines how social network platforms and ethical consumption apps, enable and shape the everyday sustainable food consumption practice of young adults in Skåne, Sweden's southernmost region. Drawing on social practice theory and qualitative methods, the study addresses a discursive confusion on the ontology of sustainable food consumption practice. It provides new empirical evidence on technology-enabled skills and competencies for sustainable food consumption, and analyzes the ways that young adults are shaped by digital technologies. The empirical material consisted of fifteen in-depth interviews, which were analyzed based on ten emergent themes. Contrary to dominant conceptions of sustainable food consumption as an intention, decision outcome, or a derivate from core assumptions in sustainable development, the findings suggest that this practice is complex, multifaceted, and revolves on combinations from three lifestyles; practicing efficiency and no food waste, practicing responsible everyday food choices, and practicing environmental conscience. The findings also highlight four categories of skills and competencies enabled by digital food technologies, and suggest that, to translate these into action individuals must be conscious, creative and experimental. It concludes that digital technologies are no neutral mediators of food consumption, and the findings explain how young adults subvert, balance or consent the shaping of their food consumption sometimes sub-consciously. These findings altogether, lead to a post-study framework that identifies five preconditions for sustainable food consumption practice; personal suitability, valence, trust, available choices, and the paradox of price.