The digitalisation of society involves developing, changing and introducing new forms of technology which enable previously analogue processes and materials to be transformed into digital format (or indeed, the construction of new processes and formats). Digitalisation has undeniably transformed vast areas of many people’s lives. Technologies such as social media platforms – for example, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which were uncommon ten years ago – have moved from the periphery used by the technologically-savvy few, and are now an integral and ingrained way for many of us to socialise, keep up to date with events and market products, including ourselves. One of the first social networking sites was LinkedIn, which launched in 2003 (one year before Facebook) and rapidly transformed business networking and recruitment for professionals and currently has over 875 million members in more than 200 countries. Online banking, online travel booking, online shopping, online therapy and online teaching have become normalised, mundane aspects of the everyday lives of many – not least during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. While the digital divide – separating those who have the means and capability of accessing the internet and those who do not – remains (Cullen, 2001; van Dijk and Hacker, 2003; Egard and Hansson, 2021), digitalisation has indubitably transformed how many people interact, work and feel.

This special section hones in on the digitalisation of one sphere of society: namely, working life. As already noted, the entrance of LinkedIn enabled easier and speedier access and transference of information – the goal of digitalisation (Härtel and Härtel, 2020). It changed the face of how professionals search for work, enabling exposure to an international and extensive reach not possible with previous analogue means, thereby helping many in their career development (see Hedenus and Backman, 2020). However, rather than highlighting the myriad of ways in which digitalisation has pushed labour practices, career opportunities and working-life interactions in such constructive directions (Scott and Marshall, 2009; Svensson, 2022: 19) the focus in this section is on the challenges that arise in conjunction with the ever-increasing digitalisation of working life, in particular the emotional challenges.

The switch from analogue to digital and the introduction of new technology is not always friction-free and while such shifts can contribute to improvements in working life, they can also create new practices and tasks and lead to the construction of new emotions many of which may not be positive and some of which may need to be managed or coped with. Perhaps the ultimate emotional challenge to be faced due to working-life digitalisation stems from the loss of work. Some industries have been more significantly affected by the disappearance of jobs than others. A prime example of this is the travel industry where travel agents have undergone overwhelming staff cutbacks in union with the introduction of online sites such as Expedia and Skyscanner (Mamaghani, 2009; Standing et al, 2014). Similarly, certain forms of work are facing dramatic changes in combination with digitalisation such as the booming gig economy (Berglund et al, 2017). Such short-term jobs or ‘gigs’ are increasingly related to digital, app-based platforms (Barley et al, 2017). Gig workers, often alienated from their employers, communicate through technological tools and often find themselves in the precariat, leading to feelings of worry and stress (Padios, 2017; Subramony et al, 2018; Moore, 2019).

Another possible challenge to be faced is the disappearance of work services traditionally entailing emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983/2003; Van Belleghem, 2016); Patulny and colleagues (2020), however, argue to the contrary. They suggest that emotion economies will become more central in the future as emotions become increasingly important when labour gaps open up due to technological innovations replacing certain forms of service work, and as emotions themselves become even more commoditised. Embedded in this is the idea that economies will become ‘increasingly characterised by the creation, extraction and exploitation of emotional products and labour, enabled by and embedded in rapid advances in technological and digital-media systems’ (Patulny and Olson, 2019; Patulny et al, 2020: 81). Therefore, while digital technologies such as automation, algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) are often perceived as constituting a threat to many workers and professionals, risking changes on a massive scale (Härtel and Härtel, 2020) the drive towards automation, algorithms and AI also brings a move towards certain soft skills and emotion-based work being desired (Rainie and Anderson 2017; Daugherty et al, 2019). Accordingly, although it seems apparent that some professions might be endangered by digital technologies – for instance content-production professions (for example, journalists, academics and playwrights) risk being replaced by ChatGPT, a chatbot with an understanding of natural human language, capable of generating written texts that read like human-written texts – soft skills will nevertheless be central in ensuring the relevant, innovative and, perhaps more importantly, ethical application of AI to human society (Härtel and Härtel, 2020). Hence, rather than adopting a dystopian approach to digitalisation, wherein the challenge is in keeping emotions relevant in working life, a more optimistic future may also be glimpsed. Indeed, some claim that it is the ‘emotionally illiterate’ (Fabian, 2013: 78) who will be at risk.

Others point to more worrying side effects of digitalisation, arising from the absence of human-human interactions (see Collins, 2020) or from the consequences of human/non-human interactions. For instance, research on affective intimacies (Kolehmainen et al, 2022) and artificial emotions (Belk, 2022) delve into issues and questions regarding the construction and experience of emotions in human/non-human interactions such as sex robots. Other forms of human/non-human interaction include mediated or online communications. These have been presented as undervalued forms of social interaction (Patulny et al, 2020: 86) with studies finding that small-scale online events can lead to feelings of social solidarity (Vandenberg, 2022) and intimacy (Holmes, 2014), however to a lesser degree than in face-to-face interactions. Larger events such as concerts may be even less successful (Vandenberg et al, 2021). Online interactions are thus understood as ‘a surrogate for social interaction, but not a substitute’ (Vandenberg, 2022: 5149). These studies also suggest a shift in the traditional understanding of the importance of face-to-face co-presence in achieving a successful interaction, to one wherein mutual focus or ‘entrainment’ becomes the key ingredient of success (Goffman, 1963; Collins, 2004; Campos-Castillo and Hitlin, 2013). All of this has relevance for understanding how to ensure workers remain focused, motivated and share feelings of effervescence when physical interactions are absent. Studies focusing on how this may be achieved in online interactions such as remote trials, which are partially or completely held online, indicate the importance of entrainment and constitute an exciting and growing area of future research (Rossner and Tait, 2021). The emotional challenge for online courts – indeed all online working life – thus pivots on constructing settings and situations within which workers can mutually focus despite an absence of co-presence and co-location.

A related aspect of particular importance here is the management of others’ emotions in online interactions. Research indicates that physical co-presence is necessary for emotion management in certain settings; for instance, defence lawyers may place a hand on their client’s leg during a trial to calm them down (Flower, 2019), gestures that are not possible in an online setting. On a more personal note, during the pandemic it became apparent to me that reading the emotional room in a lecture hall – gauging when I had lost students’ interest – was far harder in an online lecture when all cameras were turned off. I could not see when students started to stare out of the window, fidget in their seats or frown confusedly. I was thus unable to manage their emotions in the moment. Moreover, I found it difficult to conjure up the appropriate emotions in myself when staring into the abyss of black screens. The roles of co-presence and co-location in emotion management are therefore interesting areas for deeper investigation and constitute a clear emotional challenge of working-life digitalisation.

Linked to this, the employment of digital tools can also lead to emotional challenges. For instance, homecare services may implement gadgets aimed at increasing the quality of care but which incidentally function as surveillance tools, monitoring the productivity of workers (Rosengren, 2018)¹, leading to feelings of insecurity in workers (see also Akhtar and Phoebe, 2016, for surveillance and stress in the gig economy and Sydes et al, 2020, for feelings of safety and body cameras). Likewise, increasing demands on documentation in the healthcare sector and education have led to amplified levels of burnout among physicians (Gardner et al, 2019) and stress among teachers (Sandén, 2021). The emotional consequences of intensified demands on digital documentation and managing emotions in relation to non-human entities are also the focus of Teres Hjärpe’s article, in which she draws on Hochschild (1983/2003) to explore how the organisational and professional feelings rules in child protection work are negotiated. Hjärpe presents how digital documentation structures are introduced as a strategy for ensuring that social workers are not guided by emotions but by facts, leading to the construction of new emotional dilemmas and professional dissatisfaction. By revealing acts of micro-resistance to organisational feeling rules and highlighting the tensions between competing ideas in everyday practice (Bolton and Boyd, 2003), Hjärpe unpacks the emotional troubles and challenges social workers face in their digitalised work. This points to an exciting area of future research: namely, the construction and management of emotions in interaction with digital documents such as frustration, inadequacy and ambivalence, but also relief and happiness when systems function properly.

One more challenge of working-life digitalisation pertains to the introduction and inclusion of mediated forms of communication that require the textual display of emotion, such as the use of emojis and emoticons which enable self-representations akin to nonverbal cues in face-to-face interactions (Derks et al, 2008). However, as emojis are used more when communicating with friends rather than strangers, and in positive compared with negative contexts, their usage requires particular dexterity to make them emotionally appropriate in work situations, posing yet another dilemma.

Another mediated form of communication is via social media. As already noted, social media platforms have rapidly become an ingrained part of not only our social lives but also our work lives. Indeed, such is the ubiquity of social media, institutions that have traditionally been considered technologically conservative, such as the courts, now have social media accounts aimed at increasing transparency and reducing the perceived gap between society and the law (Johnston, 2018). This leads to the appropriate mediation of emotions becoming an important part of working life for many. Elsa Hedling writes about displaying emotions online in her article on digital diplomacy. She also draws on Hochschild (1983/2003) to show how digitalisation has amplified and transformed the emotional dynamics of diplomacy leading to the construction of new forms of diplomatic communication and hence, new arenas for managing emotions. Social media platforms are focused on showing how diplomats manage their own emotions and those of others in everyday work aimed at engaging the public, democratising foreign policy and increasing support for diplomacy, not least in politically sensitive situations. Hedling demonstrates that diplomats achieve this by using strategies such as emotion hooks to put online followers at ease, again forcing them to negotiate the delicate balance of digital-emotion appropriateness. Hedling’s study has particular poignancy not only considering it revisits the roots of Hochschild’s seminal work, which was inspired by observing her parents interacting with diplomats, but also with regard to the current political climate where tensions regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland’s entry in NATO, and climate change raise the stakes of diplomatic statements and social media posts.

Further emotional challenges are linked to mobile technologies which enable us to be ‘always on’ (2008; Turkle, 2017) – using phones, tablets and laptops to write emails, participate in meetings, give advice and so on. These ‘clumsy technologies’ (Bergström, 2018) not only facilitate work, they also increase workloads and work tasks leaving us with a constant feeling of inadequacy. Moreover, as Bauman (2007) suggests, these forms of communication weaken social bonds and risk replacing relationships with connections. The use of new digital technologies employed in the intersection of two spheres that are traditionally assumed to be competing: the legal sphere of unemotional rationality and the highly emotionalised media sphere is the focus of Lisa Flower’s article. Like Hjärpe, she explores the challenges of what to do with emotions in a context where they are not supposed to be found; in particular, how journalists negotiate this clash when framing criminal trials and legal professionals as newsworthy. As in Hedling’s article, the challenge of mediating emotions is central. She finds that framing serves to partially reproduce traditional understandings of the unemotionality of law by depicting trials as entailing muted emotional performances, yet by highlighting such emotions, these framings contribute to further breaking down resistance to emotions’ evident place in the legal sphere. In the digital age where immediacy is increasingly paramount and the battle to secure readership becomes more intense, emotional framing constitutes a delicate equilibrium, with imbalance risking a significant impact on our understandings of society as well as the processes and actors within. Again, this represents an important area of future study.

It seems apparent that these emotional challenges stem both from the automation of working life – doing the same thing but in a new, digital way – and from the transformation of working life – doing new things in new, digital ways (Susskind, 2019). It also seems apparent that working life will increasingly entail the integration of digital technologies and the construction and management of emotions. For instance, ChatGPT not only constitutes a threat to specific professions, it also constitutes a threat to academic integrity and honesty by increasing the risk of AI-assisted plagiarism or ‘AI-giarism’ (Morrison, 2023). This is particularly pertinent for students who may use it to generate essays and exam answers (or indeed, for academics under pressure to publish or perish). Teachers and lecturers are therefore on the precipice of being forced to either change tasks to preclude or include ChatGPT usage or increase the level of trust placed in students to not commit AI-giarism. This digital technology will also have an impact on feelings of shame and pride, social emotions that are already significant in academic and educational working life (Bloch, 2012) along with other emotions. For instance, shame may arise from struggling to adapt to the new digitally shaped reality or pride in learning to master the amalgamation of this new technology with teaching goals. Feelings of disappointment might also emerge regarding those students who cheat along with perhaps a touch of frustration at having an already unmanageable workload made just a fraction heavier. All in all, there are exciting developments just around the academic AI corner.

This section thus highlights three areas of emotional challenge to working-life digitalisation: digitally capturing and managing emotions as well as managing the emotions that arise from working-life digitalisation. It contributes to the sociology of emotions by revisiting and reinvigorating Hochschild to lift the implications of managing emotions in interaction with non-human entities along with showing the role of digitalisation in the construction of emotions for instance reshaping understandings of rationality into a more contemporary form. With this special section, the reader is invited to reflect on which challenges we have yet to face. For instance, each article lifts the importance of emotional literacy – harbouring and honing skills of how to adapt emotional displays and descriptions into digital formats. This leads to the question: will it be the digital divide or the emotional divide that plays the most central role in the work lives of the future?