Di Di, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of sociology at Santa Clara University. Her analysis explores the social affect that faith, spirituality, science, and know-how has on how we work and reside. She is the writer of the lately printed ebook Divine Meets Digital: Tech Workers and Religion in the U.S. and China, which explores how religion influences professionals’ views on tech ethics. She can also be engaged on new research that examines how non secular and non secular influencers navigate the stress between authenticity and monetization on YouTube and TikTook.
What questions or challenges are on the coronary heart of your present work?
In my work as a sociologist, I primarily examine faith. I need to perceive how individuals discover which means of their lives, what they consider, and usually, how individuals relate to one another. More particularly, I’m concerned about understanding how individuals strategy their religion and spirituality in a quick-altering technological and social surroundings, particularly with the rise of rising applied sciences like synthetic intelligence and social media. Research exhibits that the way in which individuals strategy spirituality in religion communities, like Christian church buildings or Buddhist temples, is, by and enormous, influenced by the authoritative discourse of their leaders. I’ve observed that many younger individuals don’t essentially rely solely on this authoritative discourse; additionally they search non secular assist by social media platforms, corresponding to Instagram, YouTube, or TikTook. The query is whether or not that kind of reliance on social media for non secular steerage is an effective factor or a nasty factor. I’m interested by how social media discourse would possibly change the non secular experiences of the youthful technology, and the way those that form this rising discourse (i.e. atheist, non secular, and non secular influencers) craft the message they need to ship.
I’m additionally concerned about understanding how tech employees strategy faith, religion, and spirituality, and whether or not this may increasingly affect their ethics. For instance, do they think about the rights of synthetic intelligence to be ethically controversial? And in that case, is that associated to their non secular or non secular beliefs?
Why is that this situation necessary for the world to handle at the moment?
I’d advocate that faith and spirituality actually matter as a result of they’re which means-making frameworks, so they supply solutions to the very large questions of our lives, corresponding to the place we’re from, the place we’re going, and the way we must always reside. It might be tough for individuals to formulate cohesive solutions to those questions so many depend on current methods of pondering, as articulated by sacred books and various spirituality practices, and even purely non-non secular worldviews. Our discussions about morality, politics, and new applied sciences are rooted in these frameworks, so you will need to perceive how individuals formulate them. For instance, if AI chatbots are taking part in an necessary function in shaping how individuals make which means of their lives, then we have to perceive how individuals work together with these instruments and the extent to which they embody biases. These biases might, in flip, form their which means-making frameworks and subsequently affect their strategy to different necessary points in society. Traditionally, these frameworks are offered by management in religion communities. Nowadays, they’re offered by social media influencers, and extra lately by solutions generated by AI chatbots.
Why have you ever chosen to dedicate your profession to this analysis?
I grew up in a Buddhist household in Shanghai, China. Many of my kinfolk recognized as Buddhist, however they practiced the faith in numerous methods. My grandparents adopted widespread Buddhism, going to temples and praying to the Buddha, whereas my dad and mom relied on studying Buddhist scriptures for non secular steerage. When individuals requested me about my non secular identification, I discovered it tough to provide a transparent reply. I’d inform them I used to be born and raised in a Buddhist household, and go away it at that. I used to be neither the kind of Buddhist my grandparents nor my dad and mom have been.
As a baby, I used to be interested by how my dad and mom and grandparents may apply the identical religions so in another way. This was the preliminary motivation that drove me into this work. For me, the fantastic thing about analysis is discovering out what’s hidden beneath the floor of society. Through interviews, conversations, and survey knowledge in my graduate college years, I began to grasp how the identical religions can form individuals’s lives in numerous methods, and that realization drew me into the sector of sociology, faith, and spirituality.
How have your college students impacted your analysis?
My college students play a really crucial function in my analysis course of. To some extent, they’re my pondering companions. If I’m caught on a query or not sure how others might interpret knowledge, I ask my college students to supply their views. I’ve labored with a number of glorious analysis assistants throughout completely different initiatives, and so they have helped me kick off the analysis course of by recruiting examine members and reviewing paper drafts.
I’ve taught fairly just a few courses within the core curriculum and work with many college students who usually are not sociology majors however are learning engineering, pc science, or enterprise. In class discussions, we debate subjects like whether or not the rise of AI might exchange faith, and college students elevate a variety of opinions that push me to suppose extra rigorously about my analysis. At Santa Clara, once we discuss educating the entire individual, I hope that my courses and the analysis I share play a small function in making ready college students to be nice professionals of their fields who think about how their work might have a broader affect on society.
What’s a ebook in your discipline that you just suppose everybody ought to learn?
“Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America” by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith is certainly one of my favourite books as a result of it discusses how faith can profoundly form our lives. Before studying this ebook, I didn’t think twice about how faith might affect individuals’s strategy to seemingly unrelated points, corresponding to race.
One of the central arguments is that evangelical Christianity offers individuals with a framework that’s extra individualistic than structural. The authors clarify that individuals who observe this faith could also be extra prone to interpret variations as rooted in people’ efforts, reasonably than within the inequalities embedded in society. In different phrases, the way in which our lives prove has extra to do with the alternatives we make and actions we take than with broader social buildings. This ebook helped me see that faith and race are extra carefully related than I had thought. It offers us with one mechanism to grasp how non secular frameworks can reinforce the racial inequalities that we observe in society day-after-day.