Samuel Johns is a PhD candidate in the Centre for Digitalisation, Democracy and Innovation, co-supervised by Prof. Trisha Meyer and Prof. Jamal Shahin. His research focus is on human personhood and dignity in a digitally-saturated landscape. Samuel has a Bachelor’s degree in Geography from the University of Oxford (UK) and a Master’s degree in Human Geography from the University of British Columbia (Canada) where he focussed on the philosopher Charles Taylor and the making of modern identity. He also works independently as a tech consultant in the realm of Digital Ethics and Principled AI. His PhD research is framed by a guiding question; “how do Gen Z Linksters see identity, cultivate personhood, and form a sense of self, in the age of automation”. With mixed methodological approaches, he researches both participation in Web 2.0 (user-generated content and interoperability) along with its effects on Web3 (through decentralisation, peer-to-peer autonomy, and the role of anonymity and privacy). The title of his PhD thesis is: “Human personhood in the age of automation: a study of modern identity formation in the Linkster Generation (Gen Z)”.
