Digital Futures in an Ageing Society: Frontline Perspectives on Sociotechnical Imaginaries in Swedish Eldercare.

Care professionals regularly encountered technological malfunction and implementation challenges in their daily work in Swedish eldercare.

• The study drew on interviews with 20 care professionals working with older adults in Sweden.
• Participants reported regular experiences of technological malfunction and implementation challenges at the frontline of care.
• These difficulties were experienced despite broader institutional promotion of digitalisation as a systemic solution.

Care professionals maintained persistent techno-optimism and techno-determinism in their narratives despite present digital shortcomings and failures.

• The study involved qualitative interviews with 20 care professionals in Sweden.
• Promissory discourses framing digitalisation as a solution to demographic and economic crises were taken up and reproduced at the frontline of care.
• Techno-optimism and techno-determinism persisted even amid regular experiences of technological failure and implementation difficulties.

The authors introduced the analytical concept 'tech love goggles' to describe how care professionals idealise technology and deflect blame for its failures onto external factors.

• 'Tech love goggles' describes a tendency to idealise technology and deflect blame for its failures onto external factors.
• This concept was developed to explain how faith in digital futures is preserved amid present digital shortcomings and failures.
• The concept emerged from analysis of interview data with 20 care professionals.

The authors introduced the analytical concept 'the magic leap' to describe a future-oriented logic in which present obstacles to digitalisation are expected to dissolve over time.

• 'The magic leap' captures a future-oriented logic in which present obstacles are expected to dissolve over time.
• This concept was developed alongside 'tech love goggles' to explain the preservation of faith in digital futures despite current failures.
• The concept highlights the performative power of sociotechnical imaginaries in eldercare settings.

Optimism towards digital technologies was found to obscure the immediate needs and constraints of both workers and older care recipients.

• The findings highlight the performative power of sociotechnical imaginaries in eldercare.
• The study argues that deferring care solutions to an idealised digital future has ethical and practical implications.
• These implications were considered especially significant for older care recipients whose time horizons are limited by age.
• The analysis drew on the sociological concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to frame how digitalisation discourses function in eldercare.

Sociotechnical imaginaries of a digitalised health and social care system are reproduced and sometimes challenged by frontline care professionals in Sweden.

• The study explored how care professionals encounter, reproduce, and challenge sociotechnical imaginaries.
• Promissory discourses frame digitalisation as a solution to demographic and economic crises in Sweden.
• Interviews with 20 care professionals formed the empirical basis for this analysis.
• The study was situated in the context of Swedish eldercare and its broader policy context of digitalisation.