The ‘untact’ society is an emerging theme in sociology. Unfortunately, there is little sociological research into the untact society and, further, much research is written in Korean making it difficult to assess the knowledge landscape. Nevertheless, let’s have a look at what we do know.
What is ‘Untact’?
The ‘untact’ society is a concept which seems to originate from South Korea. The general idea is that since the emergence of Covid-19, the South Korean government has been implementing policies which aim to alter society towards new norms of minimal social interaction. Rather than simply acting as a temporary response to the pandemic through ‘social distancing’, the intent is to make minimal social interaction permanent. It is almost certainly rooted in neoliberal ideology and introduces a kind of hyper-individualism taking the individualism of the neoliberal to a new extreme. There also seems to be emerging suggestion that Indonesia is following a similar trajectory, at least according to Lee (2021).
South Korean Government
Kim et al. (2018) note that ‘untact’ is a portmanteau of the Korean word for ‘no’ which is ‘un’ with the word ‘contact’ giving us ‘untact’. Telford et al. (2022) outline the phenomenon as an:
ideological state commitment to an ‘untact’ society, which is based upon an increasing primacy to technology rather than human interaction.
This aligns with the South Korean government’s press release in 2020 which included an announcement of investment into a ‘Digital New Deal’, specifically around “promoting ‘untact’ industries”. These include:
- Build 18 smart hospitals to provide remote healthcare services
- provide digital caring services for seniors and other vulnerable groups in terms of health
- help SMEs jointly set up virtual conference rooms
- provide small businesses with support for online sales
Similarly, Shafqat & Byun (2020) argue that untact:
envisions a way of interaction that involves excessive online connections among people and replaces humans with machines
Think about how you may have seen robots used in restaurants or even in hotels. Check out this video to highlight how these robots are used in a real-world situation:
Although this video was in Japan, the principle is the same. From what we see, there is a complete absence of human contact. Oh et al. (2021) conducted a study into the ‘Silver-Care Robot Program’ whereby participants were studied for depressive mood changes. Although none was found, the experimental group was very small with only 17 participants. Nevertheless, they argued that
In a situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the untact silver-care-robot program is expected to be introduced and utilized as one of the efficient care approaches for the elderly in the future
It does not take much to consider the terrible effect this might have when applied en masse to “digital caring services for seniors and other vulnerable groups”. Telford et al. (2022: no pagination) link the untact society to high levels of loneliness, anxiety, depression and suicide in relation to the breaking of social ties between people and community.
Other considerations show Zhao & Sun (2022) connect the untact concept to the rise of the possibility of an extended reality (ER) metaverse through which healthcare, in this case cancer radiotherapy, can be delivered.
Further Insights
What we saw in that video helps synthesize and visualise research from other areas. For example, Ghorbanzadeh & Aghamohammadi (2021) focus on the concept of untact tourism and Lee & Lee (2020) analyse the concept of untact customer service. Lee & Lee’s (2020) study draws on a literature review to show that untact services are becoming widespread in relation to customer services and not just confined to hotels. These areas include banking or ordering food. We can think of companies such as Uber Eats or Amazon where we order something and it turns up by delivery person. However, we can foresee a more untact implementation of these such as Amazon’s attempts at using drones for delivering goods.
The BBC also published an article which looks into the digital divide in relation to an untact system. It shows that it is the older population who gets left behind due to an absence of digital literacy.
Samsung
In a final consideration, Samsung, the Korean electronics manufacturer, used its own phones to create a film on the idea of untact. Although the film centred on the covid-19 pandemic, it ultimately attempts to showcase the use of technology in untact situations thus promoting a positive spin on how the untact society can be navigated..
As untact is an emerging concept, we will try to keep this article updated with new research as and when we get it. For now, you may consider following this concept through your own research. You can even help us keep updated by contacting us and mentioning this article.
References
Ghorbanzadeh, D., & Aghamohammadi, J. (2021). investigating the effect of risk perception of covid-19 on tourists’ behavioral intentions towards untact tourism, case study: visitors to the tourism attractions of amol city in the second wave of prevalence. urban tourism, 8(1), 15-31.
Lee, K. (2021). The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Indonesia’s Economy and Alternative Prospects for Untact Society. SUVANNABHUMI, 13(2), 7-35.
Lee, S. M., & Lee, D. (2020). “Untact”: a new customer service strategy in the digital age. Service Business, 14(1), 1-22.
Oh, J. H., Hwang, J. W., Kang, J. S., Kim, O. S., Moon, K. Y., Park, C. S., . . . Kim, J. H. (2021). A preliminary experimental study on untact silver-care-robot program. Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems, 27(5), 322-333.
Shafqat, W., & Byun, Y. C. (2020). Enabling “Untact” Culture via Online Product Recommendations: An Optimized Graph-CNN based Approach. Applied Sciences, 10(16), 5445.
Telford, L., Bushell, M., & Hodgkinson, O. (2022). Passport to neoliberal normality? A critical exploration of COVID-19 vaccine passports. Journal of Contemporary Crime, Harm, and Ethics, 2(1), 42-61.
Zhao, L., & Sun, J. (2022). Extended reality metaverse application in cancer radiotherapy: New opportunities and challenges. Digital Medicine, 8(1), 24.
