ABSTRACT
Merging insights from survey and interview data, this chapter explores how Europeans perceive digitalisation in relation to their daily lives and society at large. It aims to uncover variations across countries and sociodemographic groups and to understand the affordances and meanings Europeans attribute to digital media. Drawing on scholarly debates about digital connection and disconnection, and informed by survey responses reflecting Europeans’ perceptions of the internet’s impact in their everyday life and their country of residence, the authors analyse in depth how people expressed these influences in interviews. By distilling prevalent attitudes towards digital media, the chapter illuminates the role of digitalisation for the individual in different social domains and society in general. The findings highlight that the meaning and value attributed to digitalisation are often ambivalent and intertwined, and vary across social profiles and, to a lesser degree, between countries.
