Computing as Social Activity

Computing as Social Activity (CASA) argues that computers are social technologies, built through shared knowledge, collaboration, common standards, and infrastructure. Their use therefore cannot be understood only as an individual interacting with a machine: computing affects communities, from software teams and organizations to online networks, local groups, and humanity broadly. CASA offers principles for both designing technology and using it in everyday life. Its central ethical claim is that concern for others means putting people’s agency ahead of their usefulness to others, and that technical priorities should be grounded in social values.

In practice, CASA calls for questioning inherited computing norms and rejecting practices that undermine agency or community. It encourages accessible design, consent before acting for others, and inclusion that does not depend on technical skill; it rejects manipulative interfaces and treating people as sources of extractable value. It also favors collaboration and healthy social relations over control, automation that removes people from social activities, or computational replacements for them. Because computing always has costs, CASA asks users and providers to share those costs fairly, support participating communities, credit contributions, and resist externalized harms, inequality, and concentrated power. These recommendations are presented as applications of the core principles, not a complete checklist; when choices are unclear, the framework directs people back to community, concern, and agency.