ShodhPatra: International Journal of Science and Humanities

Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Everyday Social Life: A Generational Reading from Tripura, Northeast India

This article examines how artificial-intelligence-enabled digital technologies are reshaping everyday social life across the human lifecycle in Tripura, Northeast India. Drawing on Jan van Dijk’s access-skills-usage model and Massimo Ragnedda’s concept of a third digital divide, it situates AI-mediated change within documentary and conceptual analysis, supplemented by informal observation and family interviews. The discussion is organised generationally, showing that children, youth, working adults, and the elderly each negotiate access, competence, and outcome differently. The analysis suggests that children increasingly favour algorithmically curated games and reels over outdoor play, with some exposure to inappropriate content and reduced peer sociability, while empirical technoference research suggests that device-mediated distraction is similarly weakening face-to-face engagement within couples and families relative to traditional norms. The article concludes that Tripura’s hill-valley geography, tribal diversity, and multilingual character demand locally grounded, rather than purely national, digital-divide scholarship and further primary research.