Digital Payments and Everyday Social Life: A Pilot Study in Ashok Nagar, Hyderabad

This paper examines on how digital payment technologies such as UPI transactions and QR-code scanning, are how it affecting and changing everyday social life in India, in both cities and villages. Drawing on a pilot ethnographic study done in Ashok Nagar, Hyderabad, the research will look how digital transactions are reshaping trust, face-to-face interaction, and the cultural meaning attached to money. Since India has been working to push towards cashless economy, it is leading to changes the meaning of Money due to factors like cashless transactions. Through observation and informal conversations with vendors, auto-rickshaw drivers, students, and residents, the study finds that digital payments are moving trust away from people and onto systems, reducing everyday social interaction, and quietly reshaping how people go about their daily transactions.