The increasing use of technology in society poses potential benefits and challenges, and this is a topic of great relevance to European psychology. EFPA has given attention to this topic for quite some time, and in 2024 a Digitalisation Expert Reference Group was established to help coordinate the organisation's response (1).
EFPA is committed to supporting the digital dimensions of the Federation's purpose which is to: develop psychology, contribute to society, and serve psychologists (2). This includes responding to calls for comment, in addition to proactive policy and advocacy work to ensure that the voice of European psychology is well heard in the development and deployment of technology.
While the intersection of psychology and technology has always been relevant, the need for psychology's role in helping to inform policy, as well as research and practice, has become increasingly apparent—in topics such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), experiential technology (i.e. virtual reality, mixed reality, the metaverse) and communications and social media technologies.
While naturally including an interest in health technology, EFPA's focus on digitalisation extends broadly throughout all forms of societal impact that arise from our interaction with technology. EFPA's digitalisation focus involves collaboration between the organisation, it's working groups (3), member associations (4) and with other stakeholders to develop an integrated approach that helps bring Psychology's expertise to societal engagement with technology.
1 - https://www.efpa.eu/efpa-launches-new-digitalisation-expert-reference-group
2 - https://www.efpa.eu/about-us/missions-values
3 - https://www.efpa.eu/working-groups-and-ad-hoc-working-groups
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