Digitalization, Securiy, and the Family: New Approaches to the Social Contract
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21744553Keywords:
Digital governance, Social contract theory, Surveillance capitalism, Digital sovereignty, Digital securityAbstract
Digitalization is a transformative process that reshapes the functioning of social institutions, including the family. While classical social contract theories explained the relationship between individuals and the state through security, freedom, and property, in the digital age major technology companies and platforms have become new indirect actors of this contract. This article examines how digitalization affects the family institution and redefines the social contract.
The theoretical framework combines Hobbes’s notion of security, Locke’s focus on property and natural rights, and Rousseau’s principle of the general will with Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism, Berners-Lee’s data sovereignty, and Castells’s network society. The analysis shows that digitalization redraws the boundaries of privacy, transforms parenting roles, brings forward children’s digital citizenship identities, and deepens intergenerational inequalities.
The study highlights the need to establish a new social contract adapted to the digital age. Its core principles include the right to digital privacy, equal access, online security, digital literacy, and user representation in platform governance. Policy implications involve constitutional guarantees and child-centered data protection at the national level; European Union and United Nations frameworks at the international level; and multistakeholder cooperation across governments, corporations, and civil society.
In conclusion, digitalization is not merely a technical shift but a profound societal rupture that necessitates a new social contract centered on the family.
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