Does Technology Support or Threaten Meaningfulness in Sport? Dr Emily Ryall - Meaningful Sport Series

It is difficult to imagine any sporting activity that is devoid of technology. But how do new sporting technologies affect the values we ascribe to sport? In this new episode with Dr Emily Ryall, we revisit some of our discussion in a previous episode about the intrinsic/extrinsic values of sport and start exploring how technology can make sport and sport performance appear less meaningful.

Technology is often introduced to make sport safer and fairer. Does it always do this? While in some cases yes, we can also see ‘revenge effects’ of technology whereby it actually increases other risks by giving athletes a false sense of safety.

While we explore the potential adverse effects of technology, we also note how it has enable sport to be more inclusive, particularly in adaptive and disability sports, and has created opportunities for more people to have meaningful experiences in sport.

Dr Emily Ryall is Reader in Applied Philosophy at the University of Gloucestershire who enjoys wrestling with the deep and complex questions about the role of sport in human life. She has written on a range of philosophical and ethical questions in sport and enjoys teaching in relation to these issues as well as philosophy of science, critical thinking and the logic of arguments.