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Information and Communication Technologies in Everyday Life

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Leslie Haddon
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Leslie Haddon, (2004)

Berg, Oxford.

1
 Table of contents

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

2. Uneven patterns of adoption and use of ICTs

3. Children, youth and ICTs

4. Managing relationships through and around ICTs

5. Social networks and ICTs

6. Time and ICTs

7. Movement, public spaces and ICTs

8. Changing life circumstances and ICTs

9. The careers of ICTs

10. Conclusions

Bibliography

2
 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Roger Silverstone at the London School of Economics for

involving me in much of the original research that went into this book and for making

valuable suggestions about my original proposal. Work for Ben Anderson at British

Telecom and later Chimera, part of the University of Essex, helped to shape the

format of the book and provided an opportunity to review much of the literature. It

was his suggestion to develop a book from this project. Thanks, too, go to Ralph

Schroeder who has been extremely encouraging throughout. He also provided

guidance and feedback on the original proposal. Richard Ling made a number of

useful comments on the early draft. I appreciate the efforts of Annevi Kant as she not

only checked through the work but also helped me in my goal of making this text

accessible to a wide range of readers. Finally, thanks to my wife, Sue, for her

patience and support.

3
Chapter one: Introduction

The aim of this book is to introduce research on ICTs and everyday life

primarily to students entering the field and to those developing these technologies and

services. The book provides a guide to a number of the main existing research areas

and poses some possible questions for future research.

Perhaps it is best to start with a clarification of the words used in the title. The

term ‘information and communication technology’ dates from the mid-80s and in

particular from the British PICT initiative, a programme for looking at ICTs (Dutton,

1996). One glossary from the programme leader’s summary of that work defined

ICTs as ‘all kinds of electronic systems used for broadcasting, telecommunications

and computer-mediated communications’ (Dutton, 1999, p.7), while elsewhere he

gives the examples of ‘personal computers, video games, interactive TV, cell phones,

the Internet (and) electronic payments systems’ (Dutton, 1999, p.3). This combination

of general definition and examples conveys a sense of what ICTs can include, without

having to draw absolutely precise boundaries. This might be just as well given the on-

going development of technologies and services.

Turning to the second key term, scholarly work looking at ‘everyday life’ in

general has a longer intellectual heritage that can be traced back to Lukács and later

Lefebvre and de Certeau in Europe and the Chicago school, Goffman and Garfinkel in

the US (Bennett and Watson, 2002). However, the study of ‘ICTs in everyday life’ is

more recent. Hence, the book focuses mainly on the research undertaken since the

1990s. In practice, ‘everyday life’ has tended not mean the whole of life. Instead, the

studies have tended to deal with those parts of life outside the formal worlds of work

and education.

4
 The roots of empirical work in this field can be traced back to 1980s research on

the social uses of television, on the (then new) home computer market and on the

domestic phone. However, it was the 1990s that saw a substantial growth in

commercial and academic research in the field of ICTs, research that was spurred on

by a combination of factors. These included the plethora of new services and

equipment that appeared, the most visible of which related to the Internet and mobile

telephony. Many ICT companies developed a greater awareness of the importance of

private users as a market. In particular, many telecom companies realised that they

needed to know their markets better, especially following liberalisation, privatisation

and the move to a more competitive commercial environment in European

telecommunications. This meant that in addition to state sponsored studies social

scientists could find another source of funding to conduct research.

A certain amount of the, now considerable, output from this research has been

published in book form and in the journals that have emerged to cater for this new

field. This is more so for British and American studies and for those researchers

willing to write in, or have their work translated into, English. However, other

contributions remain dispersed across a diverse range of journals, conference

proceedings and papers given in workshops. Some has been published in various

European languages - especially French, German and Italian studies - but has not yet

appeared in English. Some research has not yet even reached the public domain. One

aim of this book is to make more of this material accessible in one text and in English.

The increasing academic interest in the private use of ICTs is shown in the

growing community of students and researchers coming from higher education

courses in media studies and in communication studies and from courses such as

innovation studies or those dealing with technology and society. Meanwhile, students

5
of design and engineering, who will later be developing ICTs, often have modules

addressing the social dimensions of these technologies.

As noted above, ICT companies, more so larger companies in practice (Haddon

and Paul, 2001; Haddon, 2002), have acknowledged the need to know more about

ICTs and the realities of everyday life. Hence the rise in the number of social

scientists within these companies and the range of industry-financed reviews and

studies conducted by universities, institutes or consultants.

The interest of policy makers has been reflected in the research they have

supported, such as the various European telematics projects. Here we see concerns

about the different forms of digital divide as well as hopes about the social inclusion

that ICTs might facilitate. Nor are social inclusion and exclusion the only policy

interests. Another example would be in policy concerns about children’s experiences

on the Internet alongside a desire to promote their digital skills and literacy. NGOs

(Non-Governmental Organisations) have also started to take an interest in this field

for similar reasons.

In addition to the greater amount of research taking place, there has been an

increase in its visibility and dissemination. There is more coverage of user research

and indeed more journals devoted to the social aspects of ICTs1. Apart from this

dissemination by publication, a number of networks of researchers emerged in the

1990s that also, sometimes informally, created a greater awareness of what research

was taking place across countries within companies and academia. Finally, the 90s

saw the emergence of relevant conferences and other meetings on ICTs that have

proliferated further in the 21st Century. It is in the light of all these developments that

it seemed timely to write this book.

6
The theoretical framework of domestication

Alongside, and sometimes in conjunction with, the growth in empirical research we

have seen the evolution and refinement of theoretical frameworks, tools and

approaches. The central one providing the organising principles for this book is that of

‘domestication’. While the studies described in later chapters actually come from far

wider traditions of research, it is this framework that constitutes the starting point for

most of the analysis. Therefore it seems appropriate to provide some brief exposition

of its history and key elements.

The concept, at least as applied to ICTs, emerged at the start of the 1990s from

an empirical and theoretical project organised by Roger Silverstone at Brunel

University. It was partly influenced by the emerging literature on consumption in

general (Silverstone et al, 1992; Silverstone 1994; Silverstone and Haddon, 1996b). I

became involved in the second stage of that project, which had by then moved to

Sussex University. Here studies of teleworkers, lone parents and the young elderly

enabled further exploration of how this approach might be applied. The studies also

led to incremental development around its key themes (Haddon and Silverstone, 1993,

1995a, 1996).

The domestication framework was used by a wider European community of

researchers partly because the academic networks in this field that were forming in

the 1990s (e.g. EMTEL, COST248, COST269). Norwegian researchers in Trondheim

in particular played an important role2. In the UK, the framework was employed by

the Sussex researchers in later studies for companies. It also formed a basis for some

policy-related documents (Haddon and Silverstone, 1995b) and discussions of issues

such as ICTs and social exclusion (Silverstone, 1995; Haddon, 2000). The term now

has an even wider currency and appears regularly in international papers on ICTs.

7
 While many of the themes from the domestication framework will become

clearer in the later section outlining the structure of the book, we can summarize

some of its key features at this point. Most early statements on domestication, as

well as most of the early British research, focused on social processes at work

when new ICTs entered the home. The term itself evokes a sense of ‘taming the

wild’. These ICTs have meanings for people, people who individually and

collectively also have a sense of identity. Hence domestication analysis considers

what various ICTs symbolise, whether they are seen as a threat or are seen as

somehow offering the possibility of enhancing social life. There is an emphasis on

the social relationships surrounding ICTs. For example, it looks at the interactions

between household members: their negotiation of the rules about ICT use, as well

as tensions or even conflicts over that use. Once ICTs have crossed the threshold,

part of the further process of their domestication involves physically locating

these technologies in the home, finding a time for their use in people’s routines

and, in various senses, displaying their place in our lives to others.

If this was the initial starting point of the domestication framework, later

British work in this tradition went on to examine the later careers of ICTs, how

our relationship to them changed long after their initial acquisition. This research

raised questions about extending the framework beyond the home, as will be

reflected in later chapters. All in all, the approach provides a very useful way of

exploring a social complexity beyond any simple ‘benefits’ and ‘uses’ of

technology. Thus, while this book is not primarily intended to assess

domestication, in general the chapters organised from the particular interests of

the author in this approach. Domestication provides an initial viewpoint from

which to survey the field.

8
Choices within the book

There are always limits to what can be covered in any one book. Some derive

from the nature of the perspective itself. Because of its focus on social relationships,

domestication in general does not consider the type of individual mental processes

that might be associated with, for example, a ‘uses and gratifications’ framework. But

then there are the particular interests and choices of the author. For example, although

I have been involved in studies of the social shaping of technology and attempts to

link that interest with domestication, this issue receives only a limited amount of

attention in the chapter on careers3. And while domestication writings have addressed

questions of ICTs and the shaping of identity, including families’ collective identities,

this theme is only covered briefly: for example, in chapter four when reflecting upon

some of the claims made about gender.

However, at various points the book explores how the domestication approach

can make contributions to different debates and it makes connections with other

literatures as and when appropriate. For example, various chapters draw upon insights

offered by studies of the life course, generational analysis, the social construction of

experiences such as childhood and parenthood, analyses of public/private boundaries

and the literature on the experience of time.

As regards the choice of ICTs that I cover in this book, the mobile phone and

Internet receive the most attention. This reflects both general trends in recent research

and the fact that these are areas with which I am more familiar. In terms of coverage,

research on the fixed line phone and on the computer come next. It was my intention

not to use the short space available to spend too much time discussing TV research,

since this is an area that has already been well covered in media studies. However, I

admit that a range of audio technologies, such as radio and MP3, as well as visual

9
ones, such as digital cameras and camcorders, receive little or no attention. Yet, some

of the more general social processes described in the book would in principle also

apply to them. In this sense, they are not meant to be excluded from the general

analytical framework.

A final set of choices relates to the national location of the studies covered. The

majority of the research cited is European, partly reflecting the projects and academic

networks in which I have participated. While the research agendas, cultural

circumstances and history of ICT markets in these different countries may vary, my

experience suggests that they also share much in common. Or at least they share

enough for the purposes of exploring some of the themes of this book. However, I

also look at North American research, especially when there are important debates

that have received more attention there. And I cite studies from other parts of the

world if I feel that they are relevant to the discussions of general social processes and

issues. Specific information to contextualise those national studies is provided as

appropriate.

Structure of the book

There is more than one way in which the material reported in this book could have

been structured and ordered. A number of researchers have specifically addressed

issues around the digital divide and social exclusion. And there is an increasingly

substantial sub-literature on children, youth and ICTs. Both subjects therefore merited

their own chapters rather than having the material dispersed across the book.

However, they can also be treated as worked examples, a way to introduce themes and

issues of more general interest, some of which can be followed up in later chapters.

This leads into a chapter that follows directly from the interests of

domestication research:how we manage relationships around ICTs, especially but not

10
only in the home. The domestication interest is then extended to consider social

networks and ICTs, which is becoming an identifiable literature in its own right. The

same is true of time and ICTs, while mobility and ICTs seems to be an emerging

research area. All three topics have their own chapter.

There is enough material dealing with the dynamics of ICTs to justify two

chapters. The first looks at how people’s changing life circumstances affects their

relationships to ICTs. The second deals with the careers of ICTs themselves and our

relationship to them over time. One difficult decision was whether or not to have a

chapter on gender and ICTs, which arguably could constitute another cluster of

research in its own right. Ultimately, the chapter chosen was broader than gender,

how we manage our relationships with others through ICTs. Inevitably, though, this is

where one would expect to find some specific discussions about gender issues.

Because the same research could sometimes be relevant to more than one

chapter there is some cross-referencing to and reminders about studies described

elsewhere in the book. The rest of this introduction outlines the chapter themes in a

little more detail, relates them to the domestication framework and poses the

questions that are to be addressed in the chapters. Each chapter then commences with

a brief statement of those questions and the interests emerging from the domestication

framework. Usually they do not consider domestication further, except in the chapters

on social networks and mobility where part of the aim is to extend the framework.

Chapter 2

Questions concerning digital divides, haves and have-nots and social exclusion

have been raised in policy and academic circles on various continents. While many

relate to the Internet, they have also touched upon other ICTs4. Admittedly, concerns

about the uneven distribution of ICT access and skills, uneven patterns of use and

11
uneven levels of interest were not the key motivation for British empirical research on

domestication. Nevertheless, this framework can provide some insights into the

processes of adoption and the integration of ICTs into everyday life – or when and

why this does not happen – that are clearly relevant for these debates. Starting with

this issue of unevenness allows us to explore what counts as ‘adoption’, ‘access’ and

‘use’. These are all measures that are crucial in much ICT research. Hence, we can

reflect more broadly on a range of methodological issues as well as the problems

involved in evaluating social consequences.

Chapter two starts by questioning whether we should think in terms of binary

oppositions such as haves and have-nots when studying the uneven patterns of take-up

and use of ICTs. It examines some of the problems associated with a variety of

measures relating to this unevenness, before moving on to the specific evidence about

an Internet digital divide. There has been some discussion of the consequences of

unevenness, more often through statements of principle and hypothetical examples.

Drawing both upon British empirical domestication studies and other research, the

chapter reflects on what the presence and absence of ICTs mean to people in everyday

life. In fact, if we consider the reactions of non-adopters, and especially former

adopters, this can lead us to a more critical approach than often exists in policy and

commercial discourses. Many of these simply stress the benefits of on-line life and

focus on (removing) barriers to adoption and use. Although much of the

domestication analysis focused on the acquisition of ICTs and how they fitted into

daily life, it always insisted that such adoption was not inevitable.

Chapter 3

The domestication framework looked mainly at children in terms of their role as

household members and how parent-child relationships shaped negotiations around

12
the place and experience of ICTs in the home. The ensuing empirical research

considered in more detail parents’ concerns about their children, attempts to control

children’s use of ICTs and children’s resistance to those efforts. Thus, the material

reviewed here provides an introduction to the broader theme of domestic politics. The

second part of the chapter deals specifically with older children, with youth. Although

it acknowledged the rest of social life, in practice the British empirical work looked

mainly at processes within the home5. The literature on youth and ICTs allows us to

start broadening the focus of domestication beyond the home and family, to consider

the influence of peer networks (see also Haddon, 2003b)

Chapter three begins by providing a wider context to parent-child relationships.

It examines the extent to which childhood and parenthood are socially and historically

constructed. This is important because it shows how the experiences associated with

these roles are not simply natural and universal. In fact, we will see how ICTs can

become involved in the on-going construction of what it is to be a child or a (good)

parent. Next we consider how, in some countries at least, parent-child relationships

are influenced by the arrival of new ICTs as well as by changes in the spaces where

they are used. That leads on to issues of parental regulation of ICTs and children’s

reaction to that regulation. Moving over to the sections on youth, we see that young

people are be no means identical in their use of ICTs. Yet, in various ways we can see

how their orientation to peers at this stage in life shapes their take-up and use of ICTs

as well as a range of related practices. We can also start to explore the

communications choices we make from the repertoire open to us through considering

the example of young people’s prolific use of textual messages.

Chapter 4

13
 Many marketing studies, as well as some academic research, emphasise the way

in which individuals use ICTs, their perceptions, their attitudes, their practices, their

styles and so on. One central theme of the domestication approach (as well as of a

number of other forms of analysis) is that those individuals act in the context of other

people, be they other household members, social network members, work colleagues

or simply co-present others when outside the home. Therefore, some themes cut

across many chapters. These include how other people influence the individual’s

experience of ICTs, how those others are affected by the individual’s use of ICTs and

how people as collectivities negotiate the experience of ICTs. These all raises issues

of power and interpersonal politics.

Chapter four examines how, in a variety of ways, we manage relationships

through and around ICTs. We have already seen some of these processes in the

chapter dealing with parent-child relationships. Now we start to explore others. The

first section looks at efforts to control the use of the fixed-line phone. We then turn to

examples of how interactions within the home relate to issues around gender and

ICTs. This is followed by research on gender and managing relationships with the

outside world, including relationships with the extended family. Lastly, the chapter

considers some particular debates about the relationship between Internet use and

sociability within the home, whic will set the scene for a related discussion on

sociability amongst social networks, a theme of the next chapter.

Chapter 5

The study of social networks has generated a literature in its own right.

Networks have been of interest to those studying ICTs for a number of different

reasons. Companies have been interested in the role that such networks play in the

diffusion of new technologies and services. This diffusion can work through such

14
mechanisms as word-of-mouth or through seeing the use made of ICTs by others

within their social networks. Another tradition, of relevance to policy, has asked how

social networks can provide people with social support, a theme that has found later

formulations in terms of the amount of social capital we have and its effects on our

quality of life. Do ICTs in general, and the Internet in particular, have a bearing upon

this? One limitation should be noted here. The chapter will not address research on

the Internet, community and civic engagement. While in some senses this could be

seen as a continuation of work on social networks, this is one step too far removed

from the primary interest in domestication.

Chapter five starts by examining how people first gain familiarity within, and

even acquire ICTs through, their social networks. Subsequently those networks can go

on to influence usage. While the domestication framework had originally concerned

itself mainly with processes within the home, this chapter then makes the case for

saying we might usefully stretch the concept to consider domestication processes

amongst collectivities such as social networks. The second part of the chapter looks

more specifically at discussions of social networks in relation to the Internet and the

relationship between on-line and off-line interactions. A number of, sometimes

interrelated, debates concern the potential implications of the Internet for sociability

amongst social networks. They ask whether the Internet influences who we interact

with (e.g. does it change the balance of local and distant contacts). And they compare

the ‘quality’ of on-line communication to other forms interaction, addressing its

ability to sustain social networks.

Chapter 6

Temporal considerations have always been an important part of domestication

research, which has consistently asked about the way people manage time and how

15
ICTs are fitted into their daily time schedules. Perhaps a less developed theme has

been the difference that the arrival of ICTs might itself make to the way we organise

time. More generally, the changing temporal patterns of our lives and the experience

of time have been objects of study in their own right.

Chapter six starts by examining why the time spent using ICTs is an issue and

for whom. Next it considers some of the domestication framework’s interest in the

time constraints that can have a bearing upon ICTs adoption and use. Here we need to

bear in mind not just overall disposable time but also the structure of people’s time

schedules. The chapter then moves on to subjective perceptions of time and how

people’s decisions about ICT use may be based upon those perceptions. Lastly, it

deals with issues around ICTs’ influence upon the way we plan time.

Chapter 7

While questions about domestic space featured in early British domestication

research, people’s movement through and presence in public spaces was not covered

precisely because of the attention that was paid to the home. Yet travel behaviour is

clearly a part of daily life. Indeed, the experience of mobility is now attracting some

attention as a topic in its own right. Research, in particular, on the use of the mobile

phone when travelling around and in public spaces reminds us that we need to address

mobility issues if we are to appreciate more fully our experience of portable ICTs.

Chapter seven considers how we might assess the influence of changing

mobility patterns upon ICT use, especially by considering the mobility of different

groups in society and by disaggregating different types of travel. Still in somewhat

speculative mode because of limited empirical data available, the chapter then

considers the opposite relationship. It looks at how we might evaluate the influence of

ICTs on mobility. Further sections deal with the consequences of ICTs for the

16
organization of travel and for the subjective experience of travelling. The final part

addresses the other main theme of the chapter, that of expectations and behaviour

relating to ICTs in public spaces.

Chapter 8

Although the earliest statements about domestication emphasized the processes

involved in the entry of ICTs into the home, follow up research considered various

transitions over the longer term (Haddon and Silverstone, 1993, 1995a, 1996). This is

important because some of the researchers who have referred to the domestication

approach see it as a process that can be finished. This question then becomes: has an

ICT reached the stage where it is finally integrated into everyday life? End of story.

The original proponents never saw such closure and so the empirical work noted

above is used to chart ways in which the experience of the same ICTs can alter over

time. Some of this is covered in chapter nine on the careers of ICTs, but chapter eight

allows us to introduce the influence of changing life circumstances.

Chapter eight illustrates the different dynamics experienced by individuals and

households through a series of detailed examples. Studies of the move to

unemployment and to teleworking provide examples of changes related to work. The

example of the transition to single parenthood then introduces the effects of shifts in

household composition. Standing back from such specific periods in life, we move on

to reflect upon the more general evolution of gendered use of the telephone across

different life stages, before returning to focus in on the specific changes associated

with the birth of the first child and the transition to retirement. Finally, the chapter

considers the issue of how much people’s orientation to and decisions about ICTs

reflects the conditions of their current life stage versus how much it reflects their

biographical experiences. Through looking at the case of the young elderly, we

17
explore the effect of belonging to a certain generation or cohort of people with shared

earlier life experiences. However, this is by no means a form of analysis that just

applies to the elderly. Therefore, the chapter ends by reflecting upon the research

questions this approach raises when thinking about generations of youth.

Chapter 9

The last topic involves a different set of dynamics. The entry of ICTs into the

home and finding a place there were the key concerns of the very first writings on

domestication. However, there are other traditions, especially those dealing with the

history of ICTs, which can be drawn upon to expand our understanding of these

processes. For example, the question of the relationship between newer ICTs and

older ones, especially in discussions of whether they substitute for or complement

each other, is a theme one finds within a number of strands of telecom and Internet

research in particular. Meanwhile, changes affecting the longer term careers of ICTs

have been explored in empirical research on domestication as well as in some North

American research on the Internet.

Chapter 9 starts by looking at the factors shaping how people first learn about

and perceive ICTs. This includes the influence of wider social discourses about those

ICTs. More specifically, it includes the role of the media in shaping our awareness of

technologies. As regards the question of how we learn to use ICTs, the chapter

considers the sources of support in that process and the nature of experience with

these technologies and services. Research on people’s early experience of the Internet

demonstrates how patterns of use change during that period. One long-standing

interest of domestication research has been how new ICTs fit into the ensemble of

artefacts that are already present in the home. Hence the chapter discusses how ICTs

find a space in domestic environments. But ‘fitting’ into the home, or into our lives,

18
also includes issues of how the use of newer ICTs is influenced by practices already

established around older ones. This is then followed by the reverse question: how do

new ICTs influence the consumption of existing ones? To answer this, the chapter

explores the extent to which newer ICTs compete with, complement or introduce

changes into the way we deal with older ICTs. The last section deals with the longer

term careers of ICTs, examining some of the influences not already covered by

households’ and individuals’ developing life circumstances. These include shifts in

the wider public representations of technologies, changes in the nature of the

technologies and services themselves, various ways in which adoption and use by

others has a bearing upon people’s consumption and the effects of adopting multiple

versions of the same ICT.

Chapter 10

The conclusion returns to reflect upon the domestication framework, its relations

with other traditions of research, how it has and could be applied and how it can be

extended. We then consider the general lessons company researchers and students

might draw from this book. Finally, as a worked example for students to reflect upon,

we look at how the material in this book might be mobilized to evaluate the social

consequences of ICTs.

Endnotes

1. If we take just the example of telecommunications research in Europe, in the 1990s

the French journal Reseaux started to report more empirical studies of telecoms in

everyday life. The journal New Media and Society appeared in 1999 and Convergence

a little earlier.

19
2. For Norwegian examples, see Sørensen (1994), Berg (1996) and the collection by

Lie and Sørensen (1996). For Dutch examples, see Bergman and van Zoonen (1999)

Frissen (2000), Rommes (2002). For Belgian examples, see Punie (1997) and

Hartmann (2003). Ward (2003) provides an Irish example, and Frohlich and Kraut

(2003) an American one. Lally (2002) in Australia and Bakardjieva and Smith (2001)

in Canada have also drawn upon this approach.

3. Sørensen (1994) and Silverstone and Haddon (1996b) provide examples of papers

trying to link the issues of design and domestication. For a more recent example of

this approach, see Rommes (2002).

4. Discussed in Silverstone and Haddon (1995); also reported in Mansell and

Steinmuller (2000).

5. Hartmann (2003) has noted that in this respect, Norwegian domestication studies

have been more willing to look outside the home.

20
Chapter two: Uneven patterns of adoption and use of ICTs

Concern over uneven patterns of adoption and use of ICTs has been reflected for

some years in discussions of haves and have-nots. More recently, and specifically in

the case of the Internet, we see this in discussions of the digital divide. In a European

context the equivalent discussion has been in terms of ‘social exclusion’, although the

older concepts of ‘disadvantage’ or ‘deprivation’ are also relevant1. Each of these

terms operates within slightly different analytical frameworks. The primary interest in

this field derives from the social agenda of the state, NGOs and those academics

informing policy. There is a concern about the potential new forms of inequality that

may arise through that differential take up and use of ICTs. To take some European

examples, we can see the EU TIDE programme addressing the potential problem that

the very design of ICTs might itself exclude some elderly and disabled people from

using them (Van Dusseldorp et al, 1998). Meanwhile, evaluations of telematics

programmes ask if attempts to encourage ICT solutions might in fact lead to

disadvantage for those who do not make use of these option (Silverstone and Haddon,

1995).

Although the prime driver of interest is policy, this unevenness is, or should

be, also of relevance for ICT suppliers. For one thing, the launch of national and

international (e.g. EU) telematics programmes in which companies are involved

involves the state financing or otherwise supporting or promoting access to these new

technologies. In addition, ICT developers have their own reasons for taking an interest

in and understanding the uneven patterns of the market. These patterns can help them

to make decisions as to whether some parts of the potential market are in practice

unreachable because of people’s resistance. By identifying who has and who has not

acquired ICTs, along with current trends, they can try to determine where the market

21
might develop or be developed next. On this basis, they can then change the

technological offerings or marketing packages available in order to entice non-

adopters to become adopters or to expand the usage of existing adopters.

This chapter will focus on uneven patterns of take-up within countries2. It first

asks questions about ICTs in general. How appropriate is it to conceive of unevenness

as a binary division, as implied by discussions of ‘divide’ and ‘haves vs. have-nots’?

What are the ways in which that unevenness has been measured? What types of

evidence have been cited? And what are the problems with these various measures?

Turning to the specific example of the Internet, what do different measures of

uneven access to the Internet show and what is the evidence of change over time?

What lessons can be learnt from general studies of social exclusion? What insights

emerge from looking at the experience of older technologies, including those from

domestication studies? Lastly, what can we learn from studies of non-users and

former users of ICTs?

In terms of addressing a policy concern, this chapter sets the scene for

understanding uneven adoption and use as one of the major issues relating to ICTs.

Subsequent chapters enable us to appreciate further the factors that shape this

unevenness. At the same time, the analysis provides a worked example. It aims to

introduce some of the realities behind terms such as adoption and use, as well as show

the complexities involved in measuring and evaluating the role and consequences of

ICTs in everyday life

Measures of unevenness

Many researchers of both the Internet in particular and other ICTs in general would

agree that it is questionable as to whether a binary division is adequate to capture the

22
complexity that exists. For example, commenting on the results of a five-country

European survey that looked at the ICTs possessed by European households (hereafter

referred to as the Telsoc study3), one French analyst rejected such a simple

dichotomy:

Rather than talk about “haves” and “have-nots”, as most official reports do, it

would probably be better to talk about the distinction between individuals and

households who are “with it” and will have all the equipment and services,

those who will only have part of them, and those again who will only have basic

services (television and telephone). We must add those who have nothing at all

to these three groups - even if they are few and far between (Claisse, 1997a,

p.141).

He added in a later report:

...the processes of social differentiation are much more complex and cannot

simply be explained away by a model of dualisation. Between households with

only telephone and television and the ‘super-equipped” households there is a

high degree of diversity and diversification of equipment combinations. Claisse,

1997b, p.34).

Next, we need to differentiate between access and possession since one can have

access to (and use) a technology or service without actually owning it. For example,

there is the practice of borrowing mobile phones. To provide some idea of the size of

this phenomenon, in a European survey (referred to from now on as P-903), an

23
average of 9%4 claimed to have access to a mobile phone even though they personally

did not own one, and this rose to 19% in the Czech Republic where the mobile market

was less developed (Mante-Meijer el at, 2001).

Other qualitative studies have shown how social networks can also provide

access to the Internet, for instance, by allowing friends to try out the Internet in their

home (Haddon, 1999a). Internet cafes and libraries as well as institutions such as

work and education provide further examples of how one can have access without

ownership. The European P-903 survey found that more than 7% of the European

sample claimed to have access to the Internet outside the home even though they did

not have a home subscription. This rose to 31% in the case of the Czech Republic,

where once again the Internet was less widespread. Clearly, these alternative sources

of access can be important, more so in some countries than others, and lead to a

slightly different picture of unevenness than that provided by measures of personal or

household possessions and subscriptions.

Then there is the question of access within the home. People ‘borrow’ access5 to

other household member’s ICTs such as the mobile phone. Or else that can use what

is perceived to be a collectively owned device, such as the ‘family computer’. In

addition there is access by proxy. For instance, while not going on-line themselves,

sometimes people get other household members to send and receive e-mails for them

or look something up on the Net (Horrigan et al, 2003). Because of this some surveys

have tried to ascertain whether a particular device is owned by someone within the

household or whether it is accessible to other members.

However, one qualification here is that just because something is present in the

home this does not mean that accessibility is straightforward. Qualitative studies have

shown that access may involve a certain amount of negotiation. Sometimes there are

24
constraints on - including rules about – use. We will see this explored in more detail

in chapter three when looking at parent-child relations and also in chapter four on

managing relationships. The point to make at this stage, though, is that when looking

at any figures about the presence of ICTs in households, we have to bear in mind that

social interaction in the home shapes how that ‘access’ is experienced in practice6.

Questions of access lead us on to the more general point that existing measures

of adoption do not automatically imply usage. People may acquire but not use a

technology. Conversely, some people may not be counted as ‘adopters’, even though

they use particular ICTs. This is because they do not ‘possess’ them, but instead they

have access to the technologies or services through other means. The European P-903

study attempted to accommodate this range of possibilities by distinguishing between

the following groups:

1. Those who have access to the technologies and services and are current users

(adopting users).

2. Those who do not ‘own’ the technologies or subscribe to services personally

but who nevertheless have access to them and use them (non-adopting users)7.

3. Those who ‘own’ the technologies or subscribe to services but do not use them

(adopting non-users).

4. Those who neither have access to the technologies nor do they use them (non-

adopting non-users).

5. Those who used to have access to the technologies and services and used to

use them but no longer do so (former users or dropouts)8.

(Mante-Meijer et al, 2001)

25
 Several points can be made here. The above typology refers only to adoption

whereas in the light of the previous discussion we might also want to consider a

typology including access rather than adoption.

Second, the last category above shows that we may want to look beyond the

snapshot of contemporary adoption and use to take into account previous adoption

and use. Former users who have given up ICTs are different in social profile from

those who have not adopted them yet and they may provide some clues about the

problems that are encountered in using these products (Katz and Rice, 2002a). This

group will be examined in more detail later in the chapter. But, to give some

preliminary idea of the size of this group, the European P-903 survey at the end of

2000 found that 2% of the sample were former users of the mobile phone and 5%

were former users of the Internet.

Third, is there a threshold below which we would be wary of claiming that

someone is a user? For example, some people carry mobile phones ‘for emergencies’

and then do not make or receive calls. In one sense they can be considered to be

‘using’ the device – carrying it around provides peace of mind. But in terms of

telephonic traffic, they are non-users. Or, if they have used the mobile for the

occasional ‘emergency’ or contingency, they may be considered to be almost non-

users. In principle the problem of how to handle rare use when trying to map the

experience of ICTs can apply to other technologies as well. British researchers cited a

UK survey showing that just over a quarter of ‘users’ had not used the Internet at all

in the week preceding the survey. A further fifth had accessed it only once or twice

(Wyatt et al, 2000). While not quite the same as the case of rare use, this it does mean

that we need to be careful not to read into adoption figures any over-optimistic

assumptions about the frequency of use, and about the importance of ICTs in people’s

26
lives. As we will see, this is also relevant to the discussion at the end of this chapter,

questioning people’s commitment to the Internet.

Fourth, we need to take into account the technical nature of access (Thomas and

Wyatt, 2000, reported in Rommes, 2002). For example, a Canadian qualitative study

reported how the age, power and speed of the equipment installed in people’s homes

varied, reflecting their diverse motivations for going on-line and differences in how

much money they were willing to spend (Bakardjieva, 2001). Meanwhile, a Dutch

study made a related point, noting variations in modem and connection speeds

(Rommes, 2002). These can all lead to users having different experiences of the Net,

including differences in what can actually be accessed9.

Lastly, in many surveys usage is measured, in one way or another, by the time

people spend using ICTs – as we shall see in the more detailed discussion of the

Internet below. However, if we really want to know more about the uneven

experience of ICTs we need to move beyond time (Jung et al, 200110). For example, a

variety of people could spend the same amount of time using an ICT but achieve

different things. And ‘heavier’ use does not necessarily ensure more sophisticated use.

In charting unevenness, some researchers are now asking how ICTs are actually used

(Chen et al, 2002). They have asked about degree to which people are able to ‘use

ICTs for personally or socially meaningful ends’ (Warschauer, 2003, cited in Chen et

al, 2002, 78). And they have raised questions about people’s ability to use the Internet

effectively (Jung et al, 2001, cited in Chen et al, 2002, 79). This entails considering

measures such as users’ different degrees of technological skills. Other researchers

have asked how we should evaluate the quality of the Internet experience

(Livingstone and Bober, 2003). And they have suggested that we should consider the

extent to which it is integrated into people’s lives (Katz and Rice, 2002b). Finally, we

27
would want to look into the consequences this might have for people’s lives, even if

there are a variety of criteria for evaluating those consequences. Compared to some of

the earliest debates on digital divides there is clearly scope for a richer evaluation of

unevenness. This is now starting to be realised.

Evidence about uneven access

Change over time

Although various North American studies of the Internet have shown that differences

in use by standard socio-demographics continue to exist11, at least some studies have

found that in the last few years certain gaps are closing. Examples would be the

narrowing of gender and age divides (Katz et al, 2001; Katz and Rice, 2002b; Chen et

al, 2002; Singh, 2001 on the Australian situation). The European P-903 study showed

a similar closing of the gap both in relation to mobile phones and the Internet as the

later groups of adopters included more older people and more women than the earlier

ones (Mante-Meijer el at, 2001).

This is important because it can make evaluating the significance of any

uneven patterns of take-up more complex. In fact, there is a somewhat common

adoption process across many ICTs whereby the early adopters of innovations will

often have one social profile but their domination of the market may be only

temporary. If it is only temporary, how much should it be a cause for concern?

Admittedly, there have been some criticisms of the extent to which we can simply

assume a ‘trickle down effect’, whereby innovations eventually reach wider audiences

(Wyatt et al, 2002). For example, some groups continue to have many non-adopters

even after the passage of time (e.g. the current generation of older elderly).

Illustrating the point a little further, where past precedents mean it is possible

to imagine some reduction in unevenness over time, this can have a bearing on how

28
unevenness is perceived as a problem, at least in public discourses. For instance, in

the 1980s there was a widespread concern, reflected in media but also in some

academic commentaries, over the gender gap in the early British home computer

market. There were worries over girls being ‘left behind’. Nowadays, when there is

much less of a gender gap in access, this is not raised as the issue it once was. This is

not meant to imply that there are now no questions to ask about gender experiences of

computing. The point is, this forces us to reflect on how we interpret evidence of

unevenness and on what becomes a public issue.

One final consideration is that amongst all the processes influencing any

digital divide (and there will be multiple influences) the very object of adoption, in

this case the Internet, is itself changing and evolving over time. Hence, if we do find

that the socio-demographic composition of earlier and later diffusion groups differ,

the later waves may not have delayed adoption because of some ‘techno-

conservatism’. They may simply be adopting later because the Internet has actually

become more interesting, worthwhile and/or easier to use or access compared to what

it was when the early waves adopted it. The earlier waves may well have consisted of

people who were willing to put up with more problems12.

Multiple measures: adding further complexity

We will now look list some of the measures used in evidence specifically concerning

the digital divide as it relates to the Internet. This will enable us to appreciate even

better some of the potential complexity that is involved.

According to one US study, on any particular day, of all those who have

access to the Internet, men, whites, higher income, higher educated and more

experienced users are more likely to be on-line (Howard et al, 2001). This

immediately underlines the fact that there are multiple measures of usage: ‘use at all’

29
(in answer to the question ‘do you ever use…?’), ‘regularly use’ and in the above

example, ‘use on a daily basis’13. In addition, various studies (reviewed in

Haythornthwaite, 2001b; Wellman and Haythornthwaite, 2002) point out that older

users, although fewer in number than younger users, use the Internet for longer when

they go on-line. In other words, we see yet another measure of usage: duration.

Within that same review a further measure of usage that was discussed was the spread

or breadth of usage – those who engage in more or less different kinds of on-line

activities. If we no longer have a single measure of use but multiple measures, the

binary digital divide might become an even more inappropriate descriptive

framework. That is, unless all the measures indicate a trend in the same direction.

Some American researchers have pointed to yet further forms of unevenness

in the market (Katz et al, 2001; Katz and Rice, 2002a, 2002b). First, they drew

attention to the existence of a digital divide in terms of differences in the very

awareness of the Internet (by age, gender and income). Second, they looked at the

social composition of dropouts. Younger, less affluent and less well-educated people

are more liable to become former users. This has important implications. To take

income, in later diffusion waves more lower income groups were adopting the

Internet, but at the same time more of those lower income groups were also dropping

out. The overall result was that this particular gap was not narrowing.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, we need to consider what the Internet is used for.

Consider the case of gender. Several studies have found differences in what males and

females use the Internet for (Haythornthwaite, 2001b; Wellman and Haythornthwaite,

2002). If the Internet is itself composed of multiple elements (e.g. web-sites for

viewing, transactional facilities, communication options) and if these have different

roles in the life of males and females, or at least if there is a different emphasis, then

30
in effect the Internet is a slightly different object for each sex. Moreover, if these

patterns of use are different, how much weight should be placed upon figures

measuring simple ‘access’ to the Net or total hours of use?

The consequences of uneven access and use

Why is unevenness of experience important? If we take the Internet as an example,

some commentaries on the digital divide refer more generally to the argument that

lack of access to the Internet might limit ‘participation in society’. Others are more

explicit and detailed, listing the ways in which non-users can be disadvantaged:

inequities of awareness and use will be come increasingly urgent as more

job-related services (postings of job opportunities, training), government

functions and public service information (health education, insurance and

financial support) become available via the Internet (Katz et al, 2001, pp.

416).

To start thinking about consequences of such unevenness, one first step is to review

the lessons that can be learnt from some of the more general discussions of social

exclusion. Second, we can consider the lessons from more detailed empirical studies

of older technologies.

Lessons from the social exclusion literature

In many respects, debates about social exclusion, as featured especially in EU

discourses, are based on older discussions of ‘relative poverty’. In particular they

relate to discussion of ‘relative deprivation’, first promoted back in the 1960s14. One

reason for referring to ‘relative’ poverty in those older debates is that poverty is a

31
moving target over time. To be without certain possibilities at one point in time would

not be considered such a major disadvantage in life. But once it becomes the norm to

have those options, being without them can be perceived as being deprived. In

principle, the same is true for social exclusion. And in principle, the same is true when

considering ICTs. To an extent this is reflected, in some of the commentaries made

about the Internet. The argument is that there may be certain, limited, disadvantages

now to not being on-line. But as more and more aspects of social life become

manageable through the Net, as more communication takes place by e-mail, as more

and more people routinely use the Internet in everyday life, there is the increasing

potential for non-users to become more disadvantaged in the future.

The other reason for referring to ‘relative’ when we discuss concepts like

‘deprivation’ is that disadvantage can itself be partial. We can be disadvantaged in

some respects while not being disadvantaged in others. This moves us away from

conceptualising deprivation (or poverty) in terms of a single underclass and fits better

with approaches within, for example, the literatures on gender, ethnicity, ageing and

disability. In relation to our concerns in this chapter, it means that ‘have-nots’, or

those on the wrong side of the digital divide, are not disadvantaged in every aspect of

their life simply because of their lack of access to particular ICTs. Even a

multifaceted one like the Internet. They may be disadvantaged in certain respects, but

not in others15.

Third, in the discussions of social exclusion and related concepts, access to

resources, and especially economic resources, remains important. But they are not the

only consideration. For example, two other important factors would be knowing what

can be achieved on-line (a form of awareness) and having the skills and knowledge to

32
achieve these goals (competence). These are not captured in measures of unevenness

that focus solely on access (or more narrowly, on ‘adoption’).

Finally, one key concept in those original analyses of poverty in the 1960s was

being able to ‘participate’ in society, joining in but also identifying with the social

world. In fact, the very words ‘social inclusion’ have the merit that they capture this

sense of avoiding social isolation. The implication is that we need to consider not just

what we possess but also what we can do, the extent to which we can fulfil various

social roles - which itself refers back to earlier discussions of social rights and of

citizenship. Approaching the role ICTs play in relation to social inclusion in this way

would enable us to explore in more detail how the specialness of many ICTs, and by

extension future ICTs, lies in facilitating connection with the wider society (Haddon,

2000b). This is especially so in the case of both the interpersonal and mass media of

communication, which both practically and symbolically facilitate participation in the

social and cultural world.

Lessons from older ICTs

We now move from general arguments to the more detailed and systematic study of

the place of one particular technology in our lives: telephony. The first example

comes from a German study of the unemployed (Häußermann and Petrowsy, 198916)

and the second from a British article reflecting on studies of single parents and the

young elderly (Haddon. 2000b17). All of these are reported in more detail in chapter

eight on changing life circumstances, but for the purposes of this chapter, those

findings can be summarized as follows:

There are some points that can be made very generally about the significance

of access to telephony. They apply not only to the particular groups studied, but also

to many other people. For example:

33
 1. Those studies all showed how telephony has increasingly come to play a very

important role in facilitating the logistics of everyday life, allowing people to

be contactable quickly, to find out what was going on and to co-ordinate their

interactions with others. In this sense we see how an interpersonal medium of

communication helped to enable face-to-face contact and sociability.

2. The research also indicated how the telephone provided a significant channel

of communication for maintaining involvement in family and social networks.

In general the phone has become even more important to the extent that people

increasingly operate over wider geographical areas and make contacts beyond

the very local area. This in part derives from the degree to which greater

residential mobility has dispersed both friends and kin.

There are some observations about the significance of telephony that may not apply to

most people but which do apply to a number of people sharing related circumstances.

For example:

3. The phone could take on an extra importance as a social lifeline for single

parents looking after children in the evening and for those young elderly who

were less mobile. Both these groups sometimes felt that they were trapped in

home.

4. The telephone often played an important role by enabling psychological

support for people coping with unemployment and for those single parents

who had experienced the trauma of family breakdown.

Finally, there were instances where the phone had a particularly important role

because of the specific circumstances of some groups. For example:

5. The phone helped the unemployed in a variety of ways, formally and

informally, to increase work opportunities.

34
 6. The telephone could be vital for helping single parents to manage any

contingencies that arose (e.g. the child falling ill) when they were the only

parent available to deal with them.

The first lesson from these examples is that in order to appreciate more fully

forms of dependence and what it would mean to be without a commonly available

technology, we really need to look beyond the broader arguments about outlined in

the previous section. We have to examine the detail of people’s lives and how ICTs

have come to fit into them. Moreover, it is important to take into account not just the

generalities, the experiences common to many people. The particularities of different

people’s experience mean that ICTs can take on an added salience in life precisely

because of those circumstances. Greater moments of dependency can result (with the

single parents often commenting that the phone had proved to be a ‘lifeline’) as can a

greater sense of loss or disadvantage if one has to do without a technology (as some

young elderly found when the phone was accidentally cut off for a while).

We can extend these arguments beyond general telephony. Some of the points

raised about telephony’s importance for job opportunities and social networking could

start to be applied to the mobile phone and the Internet. For example, the immediate

contactability enabled by the mobile might be increasingly important for finding

work. More generally as the mobile becomes ubiquitous in social life, new forms of

disadvantage may be emerging for those without mobile telephony. Meanwhile, as a

medium of interpersonal communication, research is already showing how e-mail is

starting to complement voice telephony in some social circles both for social

messaging and for making arrangements. In some cases perishable information about

what options are possible and what events are happening lends itself to distribution by

e-mail because of its one-to-many facility. Once again, we might ask for what

35
purposes and at what stage in its wider diffusion might a lack of access to on-line

messaging start to constitute a disadvantage? Can a lack of access mean that (new

forms of) information passed around within social networks are missed. Or would the

fall-back of (fixed line) voice telephony usually suffice?

However, we must also be a little cautious about overstressing the possible

drawbacks of this lack of access. People show some ambiguity even towards

technologies that they value. The best example is actually in relation to television in

the single parent and young elderly studies (developed in Haddon, 2000b).

Interviewees from both groups usually valued particular television programmes. More

generally, TV was cheap entertainment when income was constrained or when people

were tied to the home. It passed the time. It provided company. Most did not want to

be without TV. On the other hand, many were critical of TV. They did not want it to

dominate their lives. At many times, like the rest of the population, there were other

things they preferred to do rather than watch TV. While there were slightly less

criticisms of the phone, the costs of telephony could also create some concern or be an

issue. Generally then, and in relation to all ICTs, if we want to understand both their

adoption and their consequences for life we need to appreciate these negative aspects.

The importance of this critical perspective is sometimes lost in discussions of the

haves and have-notes18.

Studies on non-users, former users and intermittent users of ICTs

In the course of collecting data about adoption and usage, surveys routinely collect

figures on the non-adoption of ICTs, showing the socio-demographic profile of non-

adopters. It was American researchers who first observed that non-adoption had only

more rarely been studied in its own right (Katz and Aspden, 1998). Nor had former

users or dropouts received much attention. Yet, given that advocates of the Internet

36
emphasize the need to get on the bandwagon or else be left behind, any notable

dropout rate here immediately raises suspicions about this claim (Wyatt et al, 2002).

British qualitative studies in the 1990s indicated that sometimes people

exhibited active resistance to adoption of ICTs, revealing negative feelings about

certain technologies (the ‘resisters’ in Wyatt et al’s typology of non-users, 2002).

Certainly TV-related products and services could evoke this response. For example,

some people disliked the aesthetics of satellite dishes. Or else there were wary that

putting a dish on the wall might imply to the outside world that they watched

television all day. Large screens were sometimes avoided because that threatened to

allow TV to ‘dominate’ the room. And some resisted the entry of cable into the home

because it threatened to provide ‘yet more TV’ when there was already ‘too much’

(Silverstone and Haddon, 1996a).

For others, certain ICTs could be an irrelevance, never thought about because

there were far more other important things in life that were taking up their attention.

An example would be single parents coping with the pressures of marriage break-up,

finding new housing, finding new work etc. (Haddon and Silverstone, 1995a).

However, those qualitative studies found that the most common reason given

for non-adoption was actually that people said they simply had ‘no need’ for the

device or the service. In line with a point made specifically concerning the Internet

(Wyatt et al, 2002), some people do not want ICTs because they already have

sufficient alternative sources of information and forms of communication. Belgian

quantitative research also found ‘no need’ to be the most common explanation given

for non-adoption, even before the cost of a product or service. Moreover, this

researcher marshalled evidence to suggest that when people were saying they had no

need for some technology this was not, for example, a smokescreen for the fact that

37
they simply did not want to answer the question (Punie, 1997). ‘No need’ had become

a common justification across many groups in society, although after some discussion

of what it meant Punie argued that the response required further attention.

This theme re-occurred specifically in relation to the Internet. The P-903

European multi-country survey in 2000 showed little of the outright resistance to the

Internet that was sometimes found in relation to the mobile phone (a negative reaction

that had been discovered in the earlier 1996 five-country Telsoc quantitative study).

Non-users of the Internet were more likely to exhibit indifference towards it rather

than hostility19.

If we now turn from non-users to former users, the first article dealing

specifically with Internet dropouts was based on US surveys in 1995 and 1996 (Katz

and Aspden, 1998). The US researchers involved had been surprised to find that at

that moment in time former users of Internet were as numerous as users (both 8% of

their sample). The researchers acknowledged that they had previously neglected this

group because of their interest, shared with other researchers, in the rise of new ICTs

rather than in their rejection. Yet, they argued that this rejection could reveal

disincentives and barriers to use, as well as providing clues useful for designing and

implementing an improved Internet20.

The researchers then proceeded to compare the profiles of users and former

users. Some interesting results were that former users had only been users for a brief

time (i.e. they had tried the Internet out), that teens were more likely to be dropouts

and that there was very little difference in profile of teenage users and teenage

dropouts. The major reason for giving up the Internet was loss of institutional access,

as was the case in a comparison of surveys in later years. Other key factors were lack

of interest, the complexity of the computer, high costs and lack of time (Katz and

38
Rice, 2002b). The impression arises that, despite claims about the existence of a

young Internet generation, these teens, at this point in time in the US, had a very

casual relation with the Internet, not a committed one21. Further evidence of this

casual relationship, true of older groups too but especially of teenagers, was that

dropouts were more likely to have learnt to use the Internet informally, through

friends and family. The authors pointed out that at this stage in life this teenage group

also faced many competing attractions.

After reviewing some of the dropout data from the US and UK, some British

researchers conducted their own study of Northern Ireland university students who

were about to graduate (Kingsley and Anderson, 1998). Hence this study focused

specifically on the loss of institutional access to the Internet, asking students to

evaluate the Internet and whether they would want to continue to have access after

graduation through taking out a private subscription. The students were overwhelming

less enthusiastic than some in the Internet industry would have desired. Once again

they showed a high degree of indifference towards the on-line world. In fact, they did

not foresee technical barriers to use, they were not critical of Web content and they

did not convey particularly negative images when talking to other people about the

Internet. But losing access was not felt to be a sufficient deprivation in their lives to

make them actually want to pay to regain it22. The authors of this study observed that

the years of using the Internet while at university should perhaps be better thought of

as an extended free trial.

A later US study by Pew showed a flattening of Internet take-up. And the

dropouts were increasing: in 2003 they constituted 17% of all non-users. As in the

earliest study, about as many people were dropping out as were adopting (Horrigan et

al, 2003). In keeping with the previous research described above, just over half said

39
the main reason was a lack of need or desire, although admittedly a range of other

factors were also mentioned23. The survey also observed that a substantial number of

users24 were actually intermittent users who had gone off-line for extended periods.

Again, a variety of reasons were given for this including losing of access or

technological problems. But others cited social reasons in their lives (e.g. periods

when they did not have enough time to go no-line). Or else they concluded that the

Internet was simply not so useful to them at a certain time in their life. Such responses

question the degree to which the Internet is integrated into user’s lives. It also

introduces the idea that the careers of ICTs generally can change over time, a line of

analysis developed further in chapter nine.

In sum, while there does not seem to be much active resistance to the Internet,

some of the above evidence suggests that neither is it so attractive as those promoting

the on-line world would have us believe. Even those on the positive side of the digital

divide, i.e. users, appear to show at any one point in time differing degrees of

commitment to the on-line world. In this sense, there might be some justification in

critics challenging policy assumptions and the drive to provide access, referred to as

the ‘connection imperative’ (Wyatt et al, 2002). These critics speculated that the

ceiling on Internet growth might turn out to be lower than some forecasters had

expected.

40
Conclusions

Dealing first with the policy issues, binary oppositions such as haves and have-nots

and digital divides clearly do not do justice to the complexity of how the experience

of ICTs is uneven. This has been shown in empirical studies charting the ICTs that

people possess, but also in a typology bringing together multiple measures of uneven

patterns of adoption and use.

As a worked example, the chapter has made a start in showing how measures

of adoption, access and use can all be problematic. This will become even clearer in

later chapters of the book when we look in more detail at the social processes relating

to ICTs. One challenge for researchers entering this field is to ask themselves how

many and what type of measures should be utilized in order to capture a richer picture

of reality. Here, we have looked at the picture of the uneven experience of ICTs, but

in principle it could be a picture of some other phenomenon relating to ICTs. The

other side of the coin is that we have also seen how the existing methodological

approaches already provide scope for debate as various analysts prioritise different

measures. This reveals both the practical and theoretical decisions facing academic,

policy-motivated and company-based researchers. In what circumstances and for what

purposes should they retain multiple measures in order to develop a more nuanced

representation of reality? Or when should they focus on fewer measures, choosing to

prioritize some above others? They may want to do this in order to make new research

comparable with existing studies so as to measure change. Or simplifying the picture

may be a way to arrive at some overall judgement about the state of play.

Judging the consequences of a phenomenon such as the uneven experience of

ICTs can be as difficult a challenge as measuring it in the first place. For example, by

paying attention to the history of concerns about technology we saw that the degree to

41
which uneven use is temporary can have a bearing on any such evaluations. Through

reflecting upon the development of key concepts like social inclusion, it was clear that

any disadvantage from not having access to or using ICTs can be relative and partial.

Nor should we overlook empirical research revealing what ICTs mean to people. In

relation to the digital divide debate, these studies showed how and why even those

who use ICTs might also exhibit negative feelings about them, and how and why non-

users and former users might reject them.

This all questions any assumptions that ICTs are always an unambiguously

‘good thing’, assumptions that technology simply means progress. As regards debates

around the digital divide, it means we have to be cautious when assessing the view

that some disadvantaged people in society are simply missing out. In general,

researchers entering into the study of ICTs in everyday life need both to take a critical

stance towards the subject matter and to chart the more detailed roles that

technologies can play in our lives, sometimes considering the specific circumstances

of different groups in society over and above more general arguments about the

consequences of ICTs.

Endnotes

1. For a more detailed review see Haddon, 1998b.

2. The global digital divide and factors shaping the uneven take-up between countries

has been considered in, for example, Thomas and Mante-Meijer, 2001 and Chen et al,

2002.

3. The Telsoc survey was a survey conducted in 1996 for Telecom Italia and covered

France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. The results were published in Italian in

Fortunati (1998).

42
4. Twice as many females claimed this. This study was conducted for EURESCOM,

the research body jointly funded by European telecoms companies. The qualitative

study conducted in 1999-2000 consisted of focus groups in Denmark, the Czech

Republic, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. The quantitative study in 2000

covered Denmark, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,

Norway, Spain and the UK.

5. This practice also exists outside the home – as shown in Swedish research on the

way in which young people borrow each other’s mobile phones (Weilenmann and

Larsson, 2001)

6. In this respect, one of the potentially pertinent developments is the trend towards

multiple versions of ICTs within the home. For example, it is increasingly common to

have multiple TVs and VCRs, multiple phone handsets and multiple PCs, partly as

individual household members acquire their own devices, partly as older devices are

retained when upgrades enter the home. Arguably this arrangement sometimes

provides greater freedom of use, of access, compared to the situation of having to

negotiate with other household members over the use of a single TV, phone,

computer, etc.

7. For example, the P-903 survey showed that by the end of 2000, 8% of those

surveyed were non-adopting users in the sense that they only had access to the

Internet outside the home. If we compare this to the mobile phone, 9% had ‘shared

access’ – i.e. someone else in the household possessed a mobile that they could use.

8. Wyatt et al (2002) make a further distinction within this category: the ‘rejectors’

who stop using the Internet voluntarily (e.g. because it was boring, because there were

alternatives), and the ‘expelled’ who stop using it involuntarily (e.g. because of loss of

institutional access).

43
9. Rommes (2002) argued that this could also lead to systematic gender differences,

citing Dutch evidence showing that women had older computers and slower

connections.

10. These researchers constructed an Internet Connectedness Index, taking into

account a variety of factors and showed how more inequalities existed according to

this measure than were shown by time measures (discussed in Katz and Rice, 2002b).

11. Reviewed in Haythornthwaite, 2001b. See also Wyatt et al, 2002, Wellman and

Haythornwaite, 2002.

12. Wyatt et al (2002) made another observation about the changing nature of the

Internet itself. Later adopters may have joined the on-line world at a time when

promotion of the Internet raised their expectations. This might have led them to be

more disillusioned once the on-line world failed to live up to what they had imagined.

13. Wyatt et al (2002) call for a more refined way of distinguishing between different

types of user because of the range in frequency of use.

14. More details on the issues involved in processes of social exclusion and new

telematics in general can be found in Haddon (1998b and 2000b) and also in Mansell

and Steinmuller (2000), which draws heavily upon the these studies.

15. For example, some may be relatively wealthier, lead comfortable lives, and feel

no need for this technological option.

16. This article was based on a review of the existing German literature on the

unemployed, on survey data and on official statistics.

17. The study of single parents was conducted in 1994-5 and involved twenty parents

filling out week-long dairies and then taking part in in-depth interviews. This was

reported in Haddon and Silverstone, 1995a. The study of the young elderly (here

operationalized as 60-75-year-olds) involved a further twenty participating

44
households, with dairies and in-depth interviews. It was conducted in 1995-6 and

reported in Haddon and Silverstone, 1996. Both reports are available at

http://members.aol.com/leshaddon/Date.html.

18. Wyatt et al (2002) take such a view, listing the problems and deficiencies of the

Internet that could severely diminish the attractiveness of the Internet experience.

19. Some initiatives designed to encourage more take up of the Internet can be

informative in this respect, even if they are only small scale studies. Women taking

part in a Dutch Internet training course had done so because they wanted to find out

more about the on-line world - they feared being left behind. After the course, they

decided that the Internet did not fit into their lives, but they were nevertheless happy

that they had followed the course so that they could evaluate the Net – and become

more ‘informed rejectors’ (Rommes, 2003).

20. A related point is made by Wyatt et al, 2002.

21. One qualification to add is that this evaluation was based an analysis of the

Internet at a particular point in time. Teenage relationships to the on-line world may

change – e.g. following the greater entertainment possibilities after ‘Napster’

(Comment by Richard Ling). That said, a British qualitative study of children’s views

of the Internet noted that, despite enthusiasm for it, many preferred to do other

activities and use other media, ‘seeing the Internet as something to use on “rainy

days”’(Livingstone and Bober, 2003, p.28).

22. The authors observed that at the time, loss of e-mail access was not so significant

since e-mail was mostly used to contact other students, who were also about to lose e-

mail access.

23. These included, among other things, concerns about safety and unsavoury content,

cost, lack of time, and the complexity of the Internet.

45
24. 44% were intermittent users in their March-May 2002 survey. The figure was

27% in their December 2002 one.

46
Chapter three: Children, youth and ICTs

The digital divide is not the only area where there is a considerable public interest in

the consequences of ICTs. As ICTs from the TV, through videos, games and

computers to the Net have appeared so there has been a history of concerns about the

effects on children. Yet at the same time some technologies have been perceived as

holding out the promise of better options for future generations. Or at least they may

change in the experience of children and youth, for example by affecting their degree

of independence

To set the scene, this chapter first draws attention to the literature describing

how the very experience of childhood and youth changes over time, regardless of the

influence of ICTs. The expectations of what young people of different ages can and

should do, their circumstances, the legal frameworks within which they operate, etc.

have changed historically. In these senses childhood and adolescence are social

constructs. So too is parenthood. This certainly provides a broader context within

which to understand contemporary parent-child interactions. But more generally it

reminds us that we can ask similar questions about any groups we study, not just

parents and children, specifying how the experiences of that group are historically

shaped.

Given the interest of domestication research in how the relationship between

people affects the experience of ICTs, the focus then moves to parent-child

relationships1, and how these may be changing. In particular, there are discussions,

perhaps true of some countries in the developed world more than others, of children’s

media rich bedroom culture and children’s activities in supervised spaces. How has

this had a bearing upon parents’ ability to monitor children’s use of ICTs? How

interested are parents in controlling that use, what strategies do they employ to do so

47
and how do children resist those strategies? Through looking at parents interacting

with children we are drawn into the core theme of the next chapter on how

relationships around ICTs are managed, when there are different perspectives among

family members and some conflicts of interest.

The section on youth starts by addressing some general stereotypes concerning

young people’s communications. To what extent are young people heavy telecoms

users? And how much variation exists in their telecoms behaviour, including gender

differences, at this stage in their lives?

The central interest of much research on youth and ICTs relates to their peer

orientation. Hence the chapter asks how peer relations influence the use of

technologies like the Internet and mobile phone. How, for example, have teenage peer

relationships shaped the use of text messaging and related practices? When do we

need to may attention to peer obligations or expectations about appropriate use? And

how do fashions amongst peers have a bearing up perceptions and choices of ICTs?

Such discussions more broadly pave the way for thinking about the influence of social

networks, gift-relationships, ICT-related practices beyond narrow definitions of ‘use’

and the symbolic meanings involved in acquiring particular ICTs.

Finally, as we have more communication options in our repertoire, one research

question concerns how we choose between them (Haddon, 2003a). Of course, this

will vary according to social groups’ circumstances. But we can at least start to

consider what type of considerations may be relevant through looking at young

people’s use of textual messages via the mobile and e-mail.

48
Childhood, youth and parenthood as historical social constructions

The social construction of childhood and youth

The last decade has seen as growing literature on the social construction of childhood.

The key point is that the experience of children and youth as well as expectations of

their roles, their independence, their knowledge etc., are relative and change over time

(e.g. see James and Prout, 1997). Sometimes change is gradual, taking place over

hundreds of years, such as movement away from regarding children as simply small

versions of adults (Ariès, 1973). The emergence at the end of the nineteenth century

of the concept of adolescence as a stage between childhood and adulthood would be

another example of such shifts in perception (Gillis, 1981).

Because such changes are relatively gradual it appears that successive

generations have similar experiences. But there are also the more short- to medium-

term changes. For example, in Britain the 1980s saw a lengthening of the period

during which young people are financially dependent upon the family. This was

because of the longer time spent in both education and training due to the pressures to

acquire qualifications and from youth unemployment.

It is worth noting that in these discussions of social construction the exact

details of how childhood and youth are changing are themselves debated. For

instance, one view is that there has been a move from children having autonomy and

responsibility to being more protected, making less decisions and experiencing

making more restrictions in their daily activities (Vestby, 1994). Another view is that

we see more autonomy experienced by children, more domestic democracy and the

individualization of childhood - but also increased regulation and risk management of

children by adults (Livingstone, 1997 - referring to Giddens’ analysis). These two

characterizations cover some similar points, but they are not identical.

49
 Changes such as those shown in the examples above provide a wider context in

which to appreciate parents’ and children’s contemporary behaviour. But we also

have to take into account changes in expectations of children’s consumption of ICTs

and developments in their experiences of these technologies. For example, in different

time periods (and in different cultures2 ) we might anticipate variations in adults’

understanding of how children will make sense of media images or content, as well as

their views about what children have to be protected from or can be exposed to. We

have a more concrete illustration of changing expectations in a study commenting on

Norwegian debates about the minimum age that children should be to have access to a

mobile phone (Ling and Helmersen, 2000). After the mobile had spread widely

amongst the teenage population, the new phenomenon in the late 1990s was mobile

acquisition by pre-teens. This created some unease, as shown in interviews with

parents about the age at which it was appropriate to have a mobile. In fact, even some

contemporary teenagers commented that nowadays children were receiving mobile

phones when they were ‘too young’, given that these youth had only acquired a

mobile themselves when they were first in their teens. A number of participants

thought that the start of secondary school was a better time for children to have their

first mobile. The researchers added that during this period in the late 1990s the mobile

phone became an ‘appropriate’ coming-of-age gift for children, suggesting a broader

social (though perhaps temporary) fixing of the correct age for the consumption of

this technology.

Yet children are not simply passive in this whole process. Part of the changing

experience of childhood is that children are always growing up with new ICTs. In one

British study we are reminded children can themselves play an active role in the

changing conditions of childhood ‘through their imaginative responses, their creative

50
play, their micro-practices of daily life…(and their) pioneering of new media

practices’ (Livingstone and Bober, 2003, pp.6-7).

The social construction of parenthood

There has been less study of the social construction of parenthood, although it has

been referred to by some in the literature on media (Buckingham, 1991; Vestby,

1994). In parallel with the above discussion of the social construction of childhood, to

talk of parenthood as a social construct means that the experience of parents can all

change somewhat over time. This includes their expectations of what counts as being

a ‘good parent’, the expectations they feel they should have of their children and how

they should approach the parental role. For example, one claim is that there is now an

ideology of parenthood implying that parents should have a more detailed

involvement in their children's lives, including an increasing expectation that they

should protect their children from the flow of impressions and experiences (Vestby,

1994). It has been argued that this has altered the very process of growing up.

On the other hand, in parallel with one of the arguments made about the social

construction of childhood, other writers emphasize that the family has become less

authoritarian, a development which has received some attention especially in French

studies of ICTs (Jouet, 2000). More democracy and effort to involve children in

decisions may partly explain the greater leniency shown in efforts to control

children’s use of ICTs such as the TV (Pasquier, 2001).

However, these processes constructing what good parents should be like are not

monolithic in their consequences. We can see this in examples of media use, where

parental control varies by country. One cross-national study showed that parents in

Sweden and Italy were less strict and rigorous than both those in Belgian Flanders and

those in France. Parents in the first two countries had more lenient parenting styles,

51
granting more freedom to children and this included their approaches to regulating

children’s media use (Pasquier et al, 1998). There is also variation within countries.

For example, British studies have shown that working class parents regulate their

children’s TV watching less (e.g. Buckingham, 1991) and a more recent European

study of children has shown the similar influence of socio-economic status across

countries (Pasquier, 2001).

As in the case of childhood, we can also see people being active in the very

process of constructing parenthood. For instance, one Israeli study of people’s views

about the mobile phones pointed out how, through their complaints about children’s

use of the mobile, they were actually constructing what appropriate adult behaviour

should be like. They were at the same time indicating how ‘good parents’ should

control their children’s use of their mobiles (Lemish and Cohen, 2003).

The ways in which new pressures on parents affect they way they deal with

ICTs has been addressed in a number of writings. Some claim that there are now

higher expectations than in the past that parents should spend ‘quality time’ with

children, which can translate into spending time watching TV with them. Since the

early 1980s many parents have felt the expectation that they should acquire

microcomputers so that their children should not be ‘left behind’ (Haddon and

Skinner, 1991; Skinner, 1994). In the 90s, parents experienced a similar sense of guilt

that led them to provide their children with Internet access (Haddon, 1999a). At the

same time there have been discussions of how much parents should be expected to

provide guidelines for their children’s use of the Internet, both in the sense of making

their children aware of safety issues and supporting their children’s on-line literacy.

And to the extent that parents sometimes find this task to be difficult, the further

52
question arises as to what means could be found to support parents in managing their

parental role (Livingstone, 2001).

Parent-children relationships and ICTs

Bedroom culture and activities in supervised spaces

There appears to have been a number of interrelated shifts in the experience of many

children, in the West at least, that are relevant for understanding children’s

relationship to ICTs. One change is related to arguments about children’s greater

absence from unsupervised public spaces (Büchner, 1990; Livingstone, 2002). It has

been argued, perhaps truer in some Western countries than in others3, that many social

activities that in the past took place in public are increasingly taking place in the

home. The home is itself becoming more public, more open to outsiders (Wellman,

1999). Children also experience this, having their friends around to interact with in

their homes, in their own rooms (Livingstone, 2002).

This socialising in the home has been identified in a European study of children

as ‘Bedroom Culture’. Observing that this is a European and North American

phenomenon, partly depending on wealth, this research showed the high proportion of

European children, especially teenagers, who had their own room (e.g. 82% of 15-16

year-olds). Indeed, the majority of 15-16 year-olds claimed to spend at least half their

waking life in their rooms (Livingstone and Bovill, 2001a).

A number of factors shape this experience besides general affluence, some more

country-specific than others. For example, in Britain the influence of the lack of

leisure alternatives for children and youth outside the home has been commented

upon (Bovill and Livingstone, 2001). In addition, the last decade or two has also seen

the process, again perhaps true in some countries or areas than in others, whereby

53
there has been a growing concern for children’s safety in public spaces. The UK study

of children and ICTs described how parents felt under pressure to keep their children

indoors (Livingstone and Bovill, 1999; Livingstone 2002). Reflecting these concerns,

we now have a situation where the vast majority of children in Britain are now driven

to school.

However, children’s mobility is complex. They spend time not just in their own

homes but also in those of their friends. Although this is less well documented, one

German study observed that certainly middle-class children spent a fair amount of

time in organized post-school activities (Büchner, 1990). In this context, the European

P-903 study commented upon the practice across countries of parents ferrying their

children around to their friends’ homes and to various events and activities (Klamer et

al, 2000).

These are the background developments against which we can appreciate

children’s relations to ICTs. If we return to the bedroom culture, the researchers in the

European study of children observed how children’s bedrooms have become

increasingly ‘media-rich’. Children have gained more and more access to various

personalized ICTs. In the 1960s (to take the dates relating to Britain) children,

especially teenagers, increasingly acquired their own record-players and radios, which

in later years evolved into music systems. Since then many children have been

provided with or acquired their own TVs, VCRs and PCs.

This multiplication of ICTs within the home and their individual possession is at

one level a solution to the domestic competition for communal resources. Different

household members, including children, want to watch different programmes, to

access computers or even to make phone calls at the same time. But in more recent

years the practice of granting children access to a range of personal ICTs also reflects

54
the need to provide alternatives if children are to be kept off the streets (Livingstone

and Bovill, 1999). That said, parents do not always approve of these personalized

ICTs, especially of television. But some nevertheless recognize the positive benefits.

For example, personal ICTs allow and maybe encourage children to be more

autonomous. And, indeed, if children have their own personal ICTs this can mean the

parents have more privacy as well as choice - for example, when watching TV (Bovill

and Livingstone, 2001).

Turning now to communications, British studies showed that by the 1990s some

children had started to acquire their own fixed-phone handsets. Although the

European study of children found that such personal phones were still rare, at the

extreme end almost half the children in Sweden had them and in Israel and Italy 40%

of the children surveyed had their own phone handsets (D’Haenens, 2001). We have

seen more examples of children accessing the Internet from their own rooms,

although that same study showed that Internet access in children’s bedroom is still by

no means the norm, being only true for under 10% of households (D’Haenens, 2001).

Mobile phone sales have benefited from concerns about the times when children

are out of the home, if only by offering parents some peace of mind. Sometimes this

has been the reason why parents initially provided their children with the technology,

although Norwegian studies have also pointed out that some parents have

occasionally resisted acquiring mobiles for their children for what they see as the

unjustified purpose of status display (Ling and Helmersen, 2000).

Parents’ concerns about children’s ICTs

The issue of the surveillance of children by parents is most clearly seen in the history

of what type of and how much domestic television children were allowed to watch.

Therefore, although similar issues have re-occurred with the arrival of videos, video

55
games, home computing and more recently the Internet, we can probably get some

idea of what is generally important to parents through looking at their reaction to TV.

British studies in the 1990s found that many parents were not so worried by

particular concerns about content on television. It was more important to influence

children’s viewing in order to achieve some kind of ‘balance’ in the children’s lives.

They did not want their children to neglect some activities, including socializing with

peers, at the expense of others. Using the metaphor relating to food, parents want

children to have a ‘balanced diet’ (Livingstone, 2002), which was one reason for

parents regulating the overall time that their children spend watching TV, using the

PC or being on-line (Haddon, 1999a). The European study of children and screen

media reached a similar conclusion. Although content was a public issue, and hence

in a sense part of the social construction of what parents should be attentive to, it was

actually not so much of an issue in private. If anything, it concerned mostly younger

children. There was more regulation of time spent watching TV where it was felt to

distract children and youth from other activities like sleep and homework (Pasquier,

2001). In the US, equivalent parental concerns have been voiced about the amount of

time teenagers spent on the PC in general (Frohlich et al, 2001) and on the Internet in

particular (Lenhart et al, 2001).

Apart from this time issue, parents’ concerns about children and the Internet

have been characterized in terms of content, contact and commercialism (Livingstone,

2001; Buckingham, 2002; Lenhart et al, 2001 for the US). ‘Content’ clearly relates to

some of the same long-standing concerns about what children might encounter on

television – such as sexuality and pornography. Because it is unregulated, another

type of Internet content that has been highlighted is material found on race-hate sites.

Clearly some parents are worried about these various types of content. But there seem

56
to have been relatively few studies measuring in more detail the level of parental

concern and who exactly is concerned about what (an exception being one Israeli

study4)

Although receiving less attention in the popular media, researchers also

examined some parents’ apprehensions about commercialism on the Internet

(Livingstone, 2003). This covers not only children’s exploitation by advertising

(Lenhart et al, 2001) but also the fear that marketers are targeting children on-line in

order to get information about the family (Turow and Nir, 2000). A British study of

children and screen media commenting upon the fact that parents were concerned

about commercialism noted that worries about adverts creating the desire in children

to buy things were actually greater than concerns about television violence upsetting

children (Livingstone and Bovill, 1999).

As regards ‘contact’, British domestication studies in the 1990s already showed

the interest parents had in monitoring children’s telephone behaviour. Parents

sometimes wanted to know who their children were speaking to on the phone. Being

conscious of phone bills, some parents preferred such phoning to take place in

locations where the phone’s use could be monitored. As a result, in certain households

there were attempts to deny children the use of the phone handsets or cordless phones

in private spaces like bedrooms (Haddon, 1997a).

One Norwegian study made a similar point. Some parents did not allow their

children to have a mobile phone because they wanted to oversee the children’s

activities (Ling, 1998). More generally, concern about paedophiles has created some

parental anxiety about their children making contact with strangers on-line5.

Yet, by no means all parents are so restrictive as those in some of the examples

given above. We will see below that allowing children private access to

57
telecommunications has sometimes been seen as a way of allowing them to take a step

towards independence. And there were additional benefits from allowing children

their own handsets, phone lines or mobiles – such as relieving parents of the job of

having to pass on messages to their children.

Parents monitoring children

For many children surveillance by parents has increased. This is because in their

leisure time children are often either in the home or at other supervised locations. But

in other ways, direct surveillance by parents of children’s ICT use in general has

become more problematic.

Bedroom culture has itself created some practical problems as regards

monitoring media use (Bovill and Livingstone, 2001). So too has the arrival of new

technologies. One French study observed that in contrast to the TV, but as in the case

of the original home computer, many parents are acquiring access to the Internet at

home for their children without themselves having a developed knowledge of what is

possible via the Net (Lelong and Beaudouin, 2001). Moreover, even when parents had

some experience of the Internet, their children often used it in different ways from the

parents. For example, children more frequently used facilities like Instant Messaging

and Chat, with which the parents were less familiar. The researchers went on to point

out that (besides creating problems for monitoring children) this meant that many

parents were not in a strong position to influence their children’s use of the Net, apart

from broadly negotiating the maximum amount of time children should spend on-line.

A related point is made in the European study of children and screen media. With new

technologies parents cannot rely on their own childhood experiences when making

rules about use (Bovill and Livingstone, 2001).

58
 The arrival of the mobile phone has also somewhat complicated parental

surveillance. On the one hand, it offers more monitoring potential of a certain kind.

Parents can phone to check up on their children when the latter are out of the home. In

this sense, the mobile has been referred to as a ‘digital leash’ (Ling, 1997) although

teenagers sometimes allowed such parental surveillance simply in order to gain

possession of a mobile phone (Green, 2001). Sometimes teenagers accepted parental

arguments about safety as being legitimate (Green, 2001). Yet, at other times they

resisted such monitoring (e.g. by diverting the calls sent to them by the parents

directly to the mobile phone’s voice mail6 - Ling and Yttri, 2002).

The mobile phone has in other senses further increased children’s capability to

organize their social life beyond the surveillance of parents (Ling and Helmersen,

2000). While from the viewpoint of the parent, this decreases their ability to monitor

children’s communications, from the viewpoint of the child it increases their own

privacy.

Children becoming independent

As part of a larger French project examining the theme of youth gaining independence

(‘autonimisation’) one study emphasized how important the phone was in the

processes by which young people gained autonomy, although children’s use of the

phone also led to tensions (Martin and de Singly, 2000). These arise not only because

of the cost of calls made by young people (to be discussed in more detail in the

chapter on managing relationships) but also because of the time lost in making calls

that could have been used for studying (from the parents’ perspective). Some youth

participating in that French study referred to this tension as ‘the war of the telephone’,

a conflict between the pressure on youth to be attentive to the family and to their

studies versus the demands by youth themselves for a zone of liberty of movement

59
and expression. In principle, the vast majority of parents agreed with the need for

youth to move progressively towards independence, but at any one time the degree of

independence wanted by youth did not always match that wished by their parents.

This process of becoming independent is not solely a matter of conflict. If we

return to the theme of bedroom culture described earlier, a Norwegian study viewed

children’s self-contained media-rich bedrooms as a way of parents gently allowing

children’s emancipation (Ling and Thrane, 2001). In a similar way, providing mobile

phones can be a gesture through which parents offer children more independence. It

allows young people a discrete space, even if an electronic one, enabling parents and

children, for example, to check in with each other when youth are exploring new

spaces (Nafus and Tracey, 2002).

More generally, Norwegian researchers saw adolescents’ adoption of mobile

phones as one defining episode among others in the process of becoming independent,

a chance to get a ‘foot in the door of adulthood’ (Ling and Helmersen, 2000, p.23). In

particular, paying for one’s own mobile phone calls was seen as a symbolic

confirmation of adulthood7. Meanwhile, those same studies argued that, although the

mobile phone has now spread to the pre-teens, it was still easier for parents to justify

teenagers having a mobile as their schedules and interactions became more complex

and as they moved around more compared to when they were younger (Ling and

Helmersen, 2000).

Parental strategies for controlling children’s ICTs

Methodological issues create problems as regards assessing parental control of

children’s ICT. For example, many studies have drawn attention to differences

between children’s and parents’ reporting of how much parents regulate what

programmes and how much television their children can watch. In a British study

60
75% of mothers claimed to regulate their children’s TV watching whereas only 41%

of children said they did; meanwhile 73% of fathers of claimed to do so whereas the

children reported that only 35% of the fathers regulated what they watched

(Livingstone and Bovill, 1999). Qualitative research has suggested the same

differences, reflecting the fact that some parents try to give the ‘right answer’ as

‘good parents’. The same is true for the Net. US research has indicated that there are

already gaps between parents and children’s reports of how much parents supervise

children’s Internet use (National School Boards Foundation, 2001; Lenhart et al,

2001). Obviously the more pressure there is for ‘good parents’ to control Internet use,

the more this particular problem of measuring that regulation may arise.

Meanwhile, in various studies parents themselves observe that one strategy of

control, relying on outside institutions to regulate media, has become less of an option

with the proliferation of media channels (with video, satellite etc. that children could

access, for example, at friends’ homes) and with the arrival of, what is perceived as

being the unregulated Internet

If we turn now to details of how parents actually try to influence their children’s

use of ICTs, we might again learn some lessons from more established media such as

TV. One British study underlined how parents preferred talking to children about TV

rather than actually attempting to constrain children’s viewing. In that study, the first

approach used by parents was what has been termed ‘evaluative’. This entailed

discussing particular programmes with children to show them how to make sense of

what they were seeing. The second most popular strategy was ‘conversational’, which

entailed a more general discussion of programmes. ‘Restrictive’ strategies, i.e.

limiting children’s viewing, only came third (Livingstone and Bovill, 1999).

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 In a later study of young people’s use of the Internet by the same researchers,

examples of restrictive regulation included limiting the time that children could spend

on-line, installing filtering software8, keeping the password secret so that the parent

had to be called if the child wanted to go on-line, and banning or blocking certain

activities such as e-mail and chat. Examples of what the researchers call ‘unobtrusive

monitoring’ included positioning the PC in a public place within the home, spot

checking from time to time on what the child was doing and checking to see what

sites had been visited (Livingstone and Bovill, 2001b). This strategy of unobtrusive

monitoring has also been popular in the US (Frohlich et al, 2001; Frohlich and Kraut,

2003). In one survey by the American Pew organisation, over two-thirds of computers

used by youth to access the Internet were located in a space such as the living room,

study, den or family room as opposed to one third being located in a private bedroom

(Lenhart et al, 2001).

As regards the mobile phone, Norwegian qualitative research described how

parental control was a process of constant negotiation (Ling and Helmersen, 2000).

Here one particular issue was cost, with parents and children negotiating how usage

would be financed, a negotiation itself influenced by the arrival of pre-payment tariffs

(Ling and Helmersen, 2000).

In the light of all these options open to them, how anxious are parents? This is

difficult to evaluate, and will vary by ICT and according to the state of contemporary

moral panics (or public concern). But in the case of TV, while parents have spoken of

the difficulties of effectively restricting children’s viewing, it is worth noting that they

were often not so worried about children watching unsupervised in their bedrooms.

Many regarded their children as being sensible and discriminating media users

(Livingstone and Bovill, 1999). In the case of the Internet, a US study indicated that

62
overall parents were satisfied with children’s use and trusted their children when they

explored the new medium (National School Boards Foundation, 2001).

Children’s resistance to parental controls

What of the children’s perspective? If we return to the example of television, British

studies have shown that despite parental attempts to influence what their children

watched on television, the children themselves gained social status from watching

adult material on TV (Buckingham, 1991, 1996). More generally, qualitative studies

in France and Italy have also stressed how children do forbidden things as a way of

showing that they are grown up - and this applies equally to media consumption

(Pasquier et al, 1998).

Given various reasons why children have a different perspective from parents it

is not too surprising that a number of studies have documented children's strategies to

access programmes that their parents did not want them to watch or to watch for

longer than their parents preferred. Hence, accounts of children’s resistance to

regulation by parents have been characterized as an ongoing ‘guerrilla war’

(Buckingham, 1991), with children frequently ‘avoiding’ rules (Pasquier et al, 1998;

Pasquier, 2001) and seeking to escape surveillance (e.g. by watching when parents

were not around or by watching at someone else’s home).

In general, we see some of the same themes emerging in relation to other ICTs

such as the mobile phone9. For example, while in certain senses young people

collaborated with parental monitoring of their behaviour through the mobile, in others

they resisted it. Sometimes they developed ‘parent management strategies’, such as

giving excuses like ‘the battery ran out’ when they made themselves uncontactable by

their parents (Green, 2001). Meanwhile, a Japanese study described a phenomenon

also found elsewhere, whereby youth often made an effort to keep their parents ‘in the

63
dark’ about the content of their personal e-mails and voice calls (Ito and Daisuke,

2003). All the youth involved in that study preferred calling friends on mobiles rather

than the home phone, despite the higher cost of doing so.

Finally, as shown in British research, children sometimes found parental

monitoring to be an invasion of their privacy, an invasion of their personal space,

which could leave them frustrated. Once again, they employed a variety of tactics for

evading this control, enjoying the challenge of outwitting adults. (Livingstone and

Bober, 2003). If we look at the US, the Homenet study found that the ‘contention for

computing time is a heated issue in many of the families we visited’ and sometimes

could lead ‘to an atmosphere of deception and mistrust’ between parents and children

(Frohlich and Kraut, 2003:153). To give an idea of the scale of conflicts over ICTs, in

one US survey 40% of parents said that they had had arguments with their teenage

children about the latter’s use of the Internet (Lenhart et al, 2001). The American

research underlined the fact that parents think there are far more dangers associated

with the Internet than do their children.

Youth, peers and ICTs

Youth as General Telecoms Users

Since a number of studies have emphasized the particular importance of telecoms to

youth at this stage in their life, we can start by addressing some common assumptions

about the degree to which teenagers make calls on the traditional phone line. One

early US study suggested that teenagers dominated the phone and that they were the

heaviest users in households (Dordick and LaRose, 1992). However, the problem with

taking such results at face value is that these claims were based on the evaluations and

perceptions of parents - which may not totally correspond to reality. As we shall see

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later in the chapter on relationship management, parents may evaluate the calls of

their children as being unnecessary or think they make too many calls for their age.

Such assessments can influence parents’ estimates of their children’s usage.

In fact, a small-scale study researching teenagers in Australia challenged the

stereotype that teenagers in general were heavy users (Skelton, 1989). Reviewing

earlier American studies, Skelton agreed that teenagers with boy- or girlfriends could

generate calls of long duration. And there was often a peak in phone calls when

teenagers initially came home from school. Yet overall, teens did not generate

massive amounts of calls. Various French studies would tend to support her view,

indicating that younger, as well as retired people, actually use the phone less than the

25-60 age group (Claisse, 1989; Perin, 1994).

More recently, a French study has tried to distinguish different patterns of phone

use amongst youth (Martin and de Singly, 2000). The researchers developed a

typology from the survey data consisting of four categories. The first was those young

people who were very family-orientated, who experienced a high level of parental

control (which they accepted) and a low level of sociability with friends. They used

the phone least. The second group consisted of those who experienced completely the

opposite situation to the above, and used the phone a good deal. The third group were

the youth whom parents tried to control, but who did not always accept parental rules.

They were very sociable with their peers and used the phone the most to evade

parental control and stay in touch with their friends. Finally there were those whose

parents did not try to exercise so much control, who simply enjoyed being at home, in

their own rooms and who had a low sociability score. They used the phone less than

the previous two groups.

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 The chief point to derive from this research is not so much the detail of the

study (since, in general, different empirical studies might throw up slightly different

typologies). More important is the finding that there is a certain amount of

heterogeneity amongst youth. In the above study we can see that differences in the

experience of teenagers can arise from various factors such as home- vs. peer-

orientation, degrees of parental control, differing reactions to this etc. - all of which

can influence telecoms behaviour. In a similar fashion, when discussing the use of

screen-based ICTs, various writers have underlined the differences amongst youth

both in terms of more standard socio-demographics and related tastes, values,

attitudes and orientations (Buckingham, 2002) and in terms of other factors such as

media styles (Bovill and Livingstone, 2001; Livingstone, 2002). Appreciation of this

variation is sometimes missing in discussions of youth in general.

Finally, and as part of the on-going reflection gender through this book, there is

the question of whether boys and girls have fundamentally different patterns of

communication. The evidence has been mixed. Early French research found that

amongst schoolchildren and teenagers there were few gender differences in the

balance between ‘intrinsic’ (social) and ‘instrumental’ (functional) calls. These

differences did not emerge until student days and were only consolidated in adulthood

(Claisse, 1989). However, later Norwegian research found that teenage girls made

longer calls and even at this stage the girls were developing a different style of

communication compared to boys. The latter reported that they ‘gave messages’ when

making calls, whereas the girls reported ‘chatting’ (Ling, 1998). Once again, we can

see some of the systematic differences in communications that are starting to occur

among young people.

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Participating in the peer group

The early Australian study of teenagers first drew attention to the significance of the

phone for sustaining interaction with friends outside school time (Skelton, 1989). This

theme of youth using telecoms to manage participation in peer groups has been

recurrent in research ever since. Notwithstanding the heterogeneity noted above, in

general it has been argued that this is a period in life when the social networks of

many young people are growing and when it is important to ‘be available’ to peers. In

fact, being rung up is a measure of popularity (Ling, 1998; Ling and Yttri, 2002).

Therefore, if we want to understand the adoption and use of this new technology at

this stage in life it is important to look beyond individualistic decisions in order to

appreciate ‘individuals aligning themselves with the peer culture in which they

participate’ (Ling and Helmersen, 2000, p.20).

US Internet studies have described how young people used Instant Messaging to

arrange meetings, to talk to friends who were on-line at the same time, but also to hear

if anything interesting was ‘happening’. There were parallels with previous

generations spending time in certain public spaces, such as a shopping mall, waiting

for something to happen. They now appeared to be ‘hanging out’ on-line (Rainie,

2001). Both US and British studies have pointed out that some teenagers kept this

channel upon while doing other things on the computer, such as homework (Lenhart

et al, 2001; Livingstone and Bovill, 2001b). Peers also exchanged addresses of web-

sites that they had found as well as images captured from the web. They sometimes

created mini-networks on-line by linking home pages via hyperlinks. And they

influenced each others’ value judgements, for example in terms of deciding what it

was worth going to see on the Web and what counted as a good web-site address

(Millerand et al, 1999).

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 In many countries the mobile phone has also become tool to support peer

networking. Indeed, for some young people the mobile phone was especially useful

precisely because of the amount of time that they were out of the home at this stage in

their life, when they could not be easily reached by the fixed home phone line (Ling,

1998). Because of this, a number of Norwegian youth commented that nowadays they

would be out of touch if they did not have a mobile and they would not ‘know what is

happening’ (Ling and Yttri, 2002). In general, and enhanced later by the use of the

text-messaging, the mobile has created more moment-by-moment awareness of what

other peers are doing10.

Text messaging (SMS) reflected that same on-going effort made by young

people to maintain a place in a their social networks, as they asked questions such as

‘what’s happening, what’s going on?’ As in the case of voice calls, the number of text

messages received was itself a measure of one’s popularity, as was the number of

names in the dialling register (Ling and Yttri, 2002). When they did not receive

messages young people could now felt excluded and rejected – they felt that

something was wrong (Taylor and Harper, 2001b).

A certain amount messaging was undertaken for practical purposes, such as

arranging a rendezvous, inviting people to a party, asking what’s on at the cinema,

etc11. But the purpose of other messages lay not so much in the content but rather in

the act of having made contact. Teens reinforced a bond through demonstrating that

they had thought of someone enough to send them a message, to give them the gift of

a call. A similar observation has been made in a British study of e-mail

communication by young people. The content of messages can be repetitive and

trivial but the main point sometimes appears to be keeping in touch rather than

communicating information (Livingstone and Bovill, 2001b).

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 In this vein, a number of European studies have commented on youth texting as

a ‘gift relationship’ (e.g. in the UK, Nafus and Tracey, 2002; in Norway, Johnsen,

2003)12. Coming from an anthropological tradition, this approach sees gift-giving and

gift-receiving as an activity for cementing the social relationships between people.

When applied to youth, their rituals of exchange – though the mobile in general as

well as texting - can provide a way of ‘demonstrating and testing out the trust that

exists in their relationships’ (Taylor and Harper, 2001b, p.18). For example, one

British study described how the very act of leaving a mobile phone around on the

table, so that friends can pick it up and explore its features, can represent an

expression of trust in others. Then there is the practice of allowing others to use one’s

phone to make calls13. In fact, sometimes young people talk of feeling obliged to

make their phone available to friends, otherwise they would be thought less of. Later,

the person who borrowed the phone has to return the favour either in kind or by

another means (buying credit for the friend’s phone, buying a meal) (Taylor and

Harper, 2001b).

Gift-giving, then, entails the obligation to reciprocate. We can see this in the

case of text messaging. When young people sent messages they expected an answer,

often straight away (in contrast to the argument that because text involves asynchronic

messaging people can answer when it suits them)14. Thus, we have examples of

young people phoning up to ask ‘what’s wrong’ when they did not get a reply to their

text message, asking why they were being ignored. As the researchers put it, the

recipient of the message was ‘obliged to meet the challenge of the donor’ (including

answering messages that arrived in the early hours of the morning when they were

asleep!) (Taylor and Harper, 2001b, p.11).

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 Peer orientation is also highlighted in what could be called ‘communication-

related practices’. These are the activities that go beyond ‘using’ the technology in the

sense of sending a message or making a call (Haddon, 2003a). One example would be

showing a message to a friend, which in itself was an act of sharing, of gift-giving and

which helped to reinforce that friendship (Taylor and Harper, 2001b; Kasesniemi and

Rautianen, 2002 on observing Finnish youth). It may involve actually sending the

message to the other person’s mobile. In fact, this can happen even when the young

people concerned are talking to each other at the same table, as they go through the

ritual of saying when they have sent messages to, or received them from, each other.

Of course not all messages are shared. Nor are all messages shared with everyone.

Some are so transitory that they lose their meaning quickly when seen out of context.

Others are too personal or risky to show (although sharing personal messages can

create added intimacy). But certain messages are capable of being made more public

amongst peers, like jokes.

However, just as there were understandings about (and attempts to influence

usage of) ICTs within the family, various rules exist among peers about texting. There

are perceptions of what is the right and wrong way to go about things. For example,

even though texting often does not involve the use of formal grammar there, some

young people objected to the overuse of capital letters or the lack of any punctuation,

which could make messages difficult to read15. And there are understandings about

when it was inappropriate to use texting as opposed to using other means of

communication. An illustration of this would be when young people thought that it

was not right to end a relationship, to ‘dump’ someone, through sending a text

message (Taylor and Harper, 2001b).

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 Lastly, we can appreciate the influence of peers on young people’s decisions

through considering the role of fashion16. Norwegian research has argued that at one

point in time it became fashionable for young people to have a pager not just because

of its functionality but because it having the device itself symbolised belonging to a

group. Later the mobile phone was acquired because of this symbolic role (Ling,

1998). Yet, fashion considerations did not merely influence the decision to possess a

mobile. They also shaped perceptions of what brands of mobiles were appropriate, the

desirable age and size of models and, indeed, the choice of operator whose network

was being used. These were all ways of demonstrating ‘street cred’ (Taylor and

Harper, 2001a). Being aware of such factors was part of the successful mastery of

personal display (e.g. it was not ‘cool’ to show off) (Green, 2001; Ling and Yttri,

2002).

Youth and communication choices

We now turn to the question of how people choose from their communications

repertoires through looking at the case of young people sending and textual messages.

Sometimes, that decision relates to the fact that other communications options, such

as mobile calls, are blocked. Thus itself shows us why it is worthwhile taking a

holistic view and considering all the communications possibilities when we want to

make sense of choices. In perhaps a rather extreme example, but one which shares

some common elements with other countries, Japanese researchers have argued that

mobile e-mail in Japan was popular amongst youth partly because of the strong

regulation of voice telephony in schools and public places (Ito and Daisuke, 2003). In

schools, where mobiles tended to be officially banned, young people nevertheless

used their mobiles (under the desk) to pass on emails illicitly during lessons. The

prohibition was equally strong in many public spaces. One could find many ‘no

71
mobile phone’ signs in trains and buses and there were regular announcements to this

effect. As a result, almost none of the participants in this study made or received voice

calls in these settings, but instead used mobile e-mail extensively.

Turning to more positive reasons for the choice of text, part, but only part, of

the popularity of text messaging amongst many youth lies in its low cost (relative to

speaking on the mobile phone). Given the financial circumstances of many young

people and the need to be frugal when they take responsibility for their telecoms bills,

both analysts and teenagers interviewed across a range of studies have commented on

the importance of the economic considerations (Ling and Yttri, 2002; Fortunati, 2001;

Johnson, 2003). In addition, the price of a text message entailed a fixed cost, known

in advance, whereas how long a phone call might take, and hence its cost, was not

known so precisely. Hence texting appealed because it allowed young people to have

a more detailed knowledge of and control over their expenses.

The more intrinsic virtues of texts can be seen in the literature dealing with

young people and dating. For example, one Norwegian study described the ritual

whereby, after meeting face-to-face, young people often exchanged mobile numbers.

This was sometimes followed up with a text message, perhaps asking a question or

making some non-committal remarks as a way of showing interest in someone.

Resorting to text could avoid having to deal with the embarrassment and fluster that

can occur in a face-to-face approach (Ling and Yttri, 2002). A British study made a

related observation about young people using the Internet for dating (Livingstone and

Bovill, 2001b). In the US, 17% of participants in one survey had asked someone to go

out with them via Instant Messaging and 13% had broken up with someone through

an instant message (Lenhart et al, 2001).

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 The advantage of text, be it text messaging, email, IM or whatever, is that it can

allow teenagers the time to compose what they want to say carefully, especially if it

involves delicate matters (Kasesniemi and Rautianen, 2002). To use Goffman’s

framework, they can ‘arrange face’ and even to confer with a jury of their peers (Ling

and Yttri, 2002). Several researchers have drawn attention to the fact that text

messages sent through whatever medium allow youth to put into writing things that

they would not dare to say aloud (Kasesniemi and Rautianen, 2002; Ling and Yttri,

2002; Fortunati, 2001; Lenhart et al, 2001).

Finally, a number of researchers have drawn attention to the advantages of the

actual language used by young people when texting or sending instant messages. In

the case of texting, the creative use of language and signs was admittedly due in part

to the amount of space available for writing messages and the effort involved in

keying in messages on a mobile phone. However, the use of codes can also be meant

to exclude older generations from understanding them - acting as a kind of slang with

in-group meanings (Ling and Yttri, 2002; Talyor and Harper, 2001a). In fact, it has

been pointed out that sometimes this can also provide good camouflage for illicit

practices such as sending messages in class (Ling, 1998). A related point has been

made about teenage use of the Internet – that some teens use a form of language, a

code, which marks their identity when chatting on-line (Millerand et al, 1999).

Conclusions

By starting with the social and historical construction of childhood and parenthood we

can ask what factors influence certain judgements that adults, especially parents,

make. These include deciding the ‘appropriate’ age or stage for children to have

access to different ICTs, to certain content or to a particular medium of

communication. What shapes parents’ beliefs about the way in which children

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experience and make sense of the world and what counts as ‘maturity’ in different

contexts? How do judgements change over time about what children should do or be

exposed to, as in the example given earlier of the mobile phone being adopted by pre-

teen children? What influences expectations of how parents should behave? Given

that parents are not passive in this process, to what extent do parents resist these

discourses and on what grounds do they do so? To what extent and in what areas are

they unclear about how to act? When do they feel guilty? What sources of support or

guidance do they seek to manage their role as parents? And with what success do they

do so?

In principle the broader lesson to draw from this discussion is that one can ask

about the social and historical construction of the experiences of any social groups.

For example, in later chapters we will encounter the domestication research on

teleworkers, single parents and the young elderly (Haddon and Silverstone, 1993,

1995a, 1996). But how we live these roles and what we expect of them is influenced

by wider discourses and representations, by institutional and financial arrangements

as well as a range of other factors (including the ICTs available to them). For

example, contemporary young elderly can have some different experiences from the

young elderly of 40 years ago.

Moving back the central focus of the chapter, we saw how parent-child

interactions around ICTs were affected by developments in children’s mobility and

their presence in or absence from different public and private spaces. This provides an

example of how new issues can emerge because of changing social trends as well as

because of changes in the technology available in the household. Ultimately much of

this particular research has focused on the home, although we would have to ask how

widespread children’s ‘media rich bedroom culture’ is within an international context

74
as well as among different sub-groups of children. Looking outside the home, there

are still questions about variations in the extent to which children participate in

various organized activities, and about how they occupy and behave in different

public spaces like the street, the shopping mall or in the informal times and spaces

within school life. After all, these are all places where they can encounter, experiment

with, make sense of and develop collective practices relating to ICTs.

The material on youth and ICTs allows us to look beyond the home and family

to make sense of behaviour, or young people’s interests, by examining the

particularities of their social network. The main focus was on the way the (existing)

high degree of peer orientation amongst this group can shape relations with ICTs.

More generally, we see in the example of ‘hanging out’ using IM as one way in which

old practices can find new forms through technologies. And while gift-relationships

can be used as a framework for looking at the interactions of older groups, the various

gifting relationships relating to mobile phones are especially useful for making sense

of a range of young people’s practices. Moreover, in the course of looking at these

examples, qualitative research in particular has forced us to look beyond narrow

definitions of ‘use’ (e.g. using the mobile to make certain calls). It is important to

reflect on what people do with their technology, when not ‘using’ it in the narrow

sense – i.e. how they interact around the object.

Finally, as we have more and more ICTs, including modes of communication,

available to us, we can look holistically at the whole ensemble and ask about the

relationships between the different technologies and options. This will be explored

more fully in the later chapter on careers. But it means that instead of asking why we

use a particular technology or mode of communication we can ask why we choose it –

75
given there are alternatives. The use of textual messaging by youth provides a few

examples of the type of factors affecting those choices.

Endnotes

1. There are other themes in the children and ICTs literature, such as questions of

identity formation: for example, how children construct their identity as gendered

subjects through the use of ICTs (Buckingham, 2002).

2. In this respect, Livingstone (2002) noted some national differences in conceptions

of childhood even within the European study, particularly in relation to the degree of

autonomy seen as being appropriate for children of different ages.

3. For example, Livingstone observed that there were some similarities between the

UK and US, but also some differences between the UK and Germany. If we look

further afield, one Japanese study pointed to the relative smallness of Japanese homes,

and the fact that young people rarely had private rooms but often shared a room with a

parent or sibling. They rarely met friends at home, since they were worried about

offending parents by being too rowdy. Hence, Japanese youth socialised chiefly on

the streets, or in spaces ‘run by indifferent adults’ such as fast food restaurant,

karaoke spot or family restaurant (Ito and Daisuke, 2003). A Korean study also

explained that young people do not really have the type of personal space in the home

implied in the discussions of bedroom culture (e.g. their rooms are accessible to other

family members without permission) (Yoon, 2002).

4. This study found that 27% of parents were concerned about sexually explicit

images on the Internet, 31% about violence depicted there and 46% about on-line

material interfering with their children’s values and beliefs (Ribak, 2003).

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5. In the Israeli study, 60% of parents were concerned that adults would take

advantage of their children when on-line. But this probably reflects a particular high

profile event in that country when one teenager was lured to his death by terrorists

through the Internet.

6. Children sometimes want to avoid the embarrassment of inopportune calls from

parents. One Finnish study noted how parents’ use of texting to check that their

children were OK was a less intrusive means of monitoring than by voice

(Kasesniemi and Rautianen, 2003).

7. In a longitudinal study by British Telecom, 41% of the children paid the whole bill

and just over a third (34%) paid some of the bill. Even for younger teens, financial

independence is becoming important. Of course, some parents encourage young

people to pay for their own pre-paid cards as a way of introducing their children to

independent financial management.

8. Two fifths of parents in the US used filtering software (Lenhart et al, 2001)

9. Apart from relations with parents it is worth adding that there are also institutional

constraints on young people’s use of the mobile - for example mobiles are banned in

some UK and Japanese schools and confiscated if found (Green, 2001; Ito and

Daisuke, 2003). This is not just because of the ringing in class but also because they

might be stolen (Green, 2001). Of course, in practice youth sometimes resist these

controls as well, for example, by making calls on their mobiles in the ‘private’ spaces

within schools (one girl informant in this UK study reported that when she went into

the toilets she found a whole group of girls talking on the phone).

10. Instant Messaging plays something of a similar role on the Internet (Lenhart et al,

2001)

11. The examples come from Finnish research by Kasesniemi and Rautianen, 2002.

77
12. While not particular to youth, another dimension of gift-giving analysed in French

research is in giving out one’s mobile phone number to others, and the expectation of

reciprocity. Thus exchanging numbers can reflect and become a token of the trust that

has been built up between people (Licoppe and Heutin, 2001).

13. This can happen if the credit on one person’s prepayment card is used up, in

which case he or she can borrow the phone from other peers. The way in which

mobile network charges are organised means that it is sometimes cheaper to use a

friend’s mobile because he or she is on the same network as the person being called.

14. Similar observations were made in a Japanese study of youth (Ito and Daisuke,

2003). The participants discussed the expectation of receiving a reply within thirty

minutes, the criticism they might expect if they were late in replying, and what

counted as legitimate reasons for not replying. The researchers argued that this

constituted a new kind of discipline on youth, a pressure to be so available to peers,

but they also drew attention to the strategies for negotiating non-availability. For

example, sending an e-mail about one’s intention to take a bath was a ‘kind of virtual

locking of the door’ on peers.

15. The abbreviations and shorthands could also make it difficult to understand the

intent of messages, especially if humour or sarcasm was involved (Eldridge and

Grinter, 2001)

16. For an extended discussion of the nature of fashion and mobile phones, see Ling

(2004).

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Chapter four: Managing relationships through and around ICTs

The previous chapter reminded us how the individual’s use of ICTs, in this case that

of child and youth, takes place in a wider social context of their relationships with

parents and peers. It showed how the use of even personal ICTs could be regulated by

others. This influence can be missed in studies that emphasize individual motivations

and choices as shaping patterns of behaviour.

Following the main emphasis in British domestication research to date, this

chapter starts by more generally looking at the home context in which individuals

‘consume’ technologies. This is a space where various household members have

commitments, routines and general demands on time and space as well as values,

hopes and concerns. These all interact and shape that consumption. For example, non-

users of ICTs, partners as well as parents, might nevertheless act as ‘gatekeepers’

influence the very adoption process and subsequent patterns of usage.

First, we explore what lessons can be learnt from research looking at the

tensions around and the regulation of the traditional fixed phone. We will do this

mainly by exploring how and why people try to control outgoing and incoming calls.

Why is this an issue within households? And what types of control strategies are

used? In fact, here we see one of the few attempts to turn the more qualitative

orientation of the domestication approach into quantitative measures in order to have

some understanding of the scale of these types of household processes.

Apart from parent-child relationships, gender relations in the home have long

been identified as a major consideration affecting the experience of ICTs. What has

research suggested about the aspects of relationships between males and females in

the home that might relate to different gender usage of ICTs such as the Internet?

Meanwhile, the telephone literature has pointed to gender divisions of labour in the

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field of communication, specifically in terms of women’s traditional role of managing

relationships with the outside world. In which case, one question is whether new

modes of communication and new practices accompanying them have any bearing

upon this gendered pattern of behaviour.

We turn next to a study of communications with the extended family, partly

because much of the discussion of maintaining social networks and providing social

support emphasizes the positive dimensions of ICTs role in communication. But if we

want to approach this with a more critical eye we could ask what conflicts of interests

and obligations are involved in maintaining this particular familial social network.

Lastly, the chapter looks at debates on ‘sociability’ within the home – referring

principally to North American discussions. It shifts the focus to the consequences of

ICT use, asking specifically whether time spent on-line detracts from time spent with

family members.

Controlling communication

The mid-1990s British domestication studies provided qualitative evidence of how the

cost of telephony was an issue in many households (Haddon, 19941). Norwegian

studies have since further illustrated the arguments that take place within the home

about the phone bill, especially concerning the use of the phone by teenagers (Ling,

1998; Ling and Helmersen, 2000; Ling, 2004). The British qualitative studies

suggested that while telephony costs were less of a problem in those relatively more

affluent households with few economic worries, it was very much an issue for more

than just the poorest in society (Haddon, 1994). For example, many of the middle-

class households studied had limited disposable income, since the parents had

committed their money to high mortgages or children’s private education. Such

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lifestyle choices meant they still had to be careful about their expenditures, including

spending on telephony.

Nevertheless, in those British studies concern about phone costs was most acute

among those living on low incomes, namely many of the single parents studied and

some elderly people living solely on state benefits. These were the very people for

whom the phone could be vital in the event of emergencies or as a social lifeline when

they felt trapped in the home in the evenings. Worry about phone bills led to both

groups steering outgoing calls to times when cheaper tariffs operated, when this was

possible. Ringing up various state agencies and the local council about problems

related to living on a low income generally had to be done in the daytime. Calls were

also rationed, both in terms of the number of calls and their length. Often, children’s

use was rationed, with the instigation of rules about what counted as necessary and

unnecessary calls. In such households, children obviously had less access to a

communications resource than many of their peers and experienced some sense of

disadvantage. Despite such measures, the phone bill often remained a source of

anxiety, always threatening to spiral out of control.

Large phone bills could sometimes become a very serious concern indeed in

the case of communal living arrangements or when families had other people sharing

their household: such as lodgers or au pairs. The studies picked up horror stories of

huge bills arriving due to illicit use of the phone. Bills could also be an issue between

partners, and one that had been exacerbated sometimes by the introduction of itemised

billing. More frequently, as in the Norwegian studies, phone bills were a source of

heated debate between parents and teenage children, especially concerning the costs

relating to the latter’s social calls - more so when money was tight.

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 But it was not just the cost of calls that could be a source of discontent. A

French study noting the ‘war of the phone’ was already discussed in the chapter on

children. In addition, where one household member took over the phone, blocking the

phone with their frequent or long calls, this denied access to others. Again, the

Norwegian studies provided examples where blocking was a source of tension (Ling,

1998).

Incoming calls were problematic for other reasons2. In the British studies,

participants sometimes made reference to the various unwanted phone calls from

acquaintances whom they preferred to avoid. But even apart from these, there were

times when people found incoming calls in general to be intrusive upon their peace

and privacy. In the light of feminist writings on the way in which women network

over the phone, it is worth adding that this was not just a male response to the outside

world invading the haven of the home. Women too, especially those who were major

users of the phone for work or at work, could suffer from ‘phone fatigue’. They

wanted a break from the demands of the telephone and sometimes would rather

interact with their partners or children. There were periods when incoming calls

interfered with the routines of the home, coming at unsociable or simply inconvenient

times - such as late at night or early in the morning, or when parents were getting

children off to school or nursery or putting them to bed (also discussed in more depth

in Lacohée and Anderson, 2001).

The whole issue of the disruptiveness of calls arose most acutely in the study

of teleworkers for a variety of reasons. Here there was a frequent assumption on the

part of employers or clients that because teleworkers were home-based they could be

contacted about work issues outside of normal core working hours - i.e. at evenings

and weekends. While this was not deemed to be a problem by some teleworkers, for

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others it was disruptive to family life. Home was no longer a place to retreat from

paid labour. On the other hand, friends sometimes did not appreciate that, even if they

were at home, teleworkers still had to get through their workload. Incoming social

calls to teleworkers could be a distraction from that work. In addition, the sheer

volume of calls into the home often increased with the arrival of telework, meaning

that other members of the teleworker’s household would occasionally feel pestered by

the phone.

Finally, the British studies in general found that other household members could

resent the number of calls coming in for someone who was at the heart of large social

networks (such as, but not only, teenage children). They could also resent the fact that

they had to take on the role of secretary, forever answering calls and taking messages

for that person.

The British studies showed how strategies to handle conflicts about outgoing

calls entailed both social and technological solutions. Persuasion only worked some of

the time. But there were plenty of examples of parents who managed to ration their

children’s calls, limit them to times when low tariffs operated or succeed in defining

‘necessary’ and ‘unnecessary’ communications. Where such persuasion did not work,

the issue could remain an on-going sore point. Or else parents resorted to other

strategies such as charging children for telephone use or deducting pocket money to

pay for their calls3.

Another tactic involved attempting to control the location of the phone. One

variation of this involved not allowing children to have access to extensions or

cordless phones, and placing the main phone handset in a relatively public place

within the home, such as a hall. As we saw in the chapter on children, this meant that

calls could be more easily monitored. Alternatively, some of the parents who were

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studied tried to make the location as uncomfortable as possible. It must be added,

though, that determined teenagers appeared to be able to settle down to long phone

calls even in the most awkward of spaces. Some parents utilised call-barring: stopping

either incoming or outgoing calls at some points of the day, or allowing only local

calls. And as an extreme measure, one parent even resorted to sabotaging his teenage

daughter’s handset4.

The five-country Telsoc survey attempted to map in quantitative terms the

extent to which these issues existed in households and the extent of efforts to control

outgoing communication (Haddon, 1998a5). It is worth spending just a little time to

look at the detail because this aspect of consumption is only more rarely covered in

quantitative studies. It underlines, too, the importance of focusing on the household,

not just the individual.

One first question in the survey asked whether household members received

complaints about their phone calls for a variety of reasons6. Here, the existence of

complaints was taken to indicate that phone use was an issue. In addition,

complaining was in itself a verbal means of trying to influence other people’s usage.

While only a minority in each country mentioned any specific complaints, these were

sizeable minorities ranging from 13-32%. The same complaint, about cost, was the

most important one in all the countries. In the European sample, females received far

more of every complaint compared to males. Meanwhile, a substantial proportion of

children, rising to nearly two-thirds of British 14-17 year-olds, received complaints

about cost of their phone calls. The finding about children might have been

anticipated from the previous research cited above, but the scale is perhaps a little

surprising - that so many children across Europe receive complaints.

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 A second question asked about whether people made an effort to control the

use of the phone7. In the European sample, nearly two-thirds tried to use cheaper

tariffs or else tried to limit their own use. Clearly, while the various national telephone

companies are usually interested in encouraging greater use of the phone or related

services, a high proportion of consumers are already exercising some restraint upon

their usage.

As regards incoming calls, a substantial minority (37%) did find calls to be

disruptive. However, there was a wide range in responses to the perception of

disruptiveness across the countries. Perhaps this reflects some cultural variation in the

extent to which different nationals value a domestic life uninterrupted by the

intrusiveness of the outside world. There were questions in the survey about the

various strategies that interviewees used to control incoming calls8. In contrast to the

case of controlling outgoing calls, only a very small proportion of people in all the

countries used any of the strategies frequently.

Another strategy for controlling calls was available to those with an answering

machine: filtering calls9. This is particularly interesting because this application was

not the basis upon which the technology had originally been marketed. Filtering calls

- checking who calls before deciding whether to answer - involved quite a radical

change in practice. The answering machine was sold on the basis that it could take

calls when people were out, but it was being used to take them even when they were

at home. Generations have learnt to answer the phone when it rang – indeed, many

have sometime talked about the psychological difficulty involved in ignoring the

ringing phone. Nowadays forms of filtering are more commonplace, e.g. the caller

line identification service enabling one to check the identity of caller. Indeed, some

young people reported sending mobile phone calls to their voice mail immediately

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they saw on the screen who was calling. But originally filtering by answering machine

was a practice that was not intended by the technology developers. Or at least it was

not promoted by them. In this sense, the practice of filtering illustrates people’s

appropriation of a technology, a practice learnt through experimentation, but probably

also learnt through informal channels of personal communication (i.e. people telling

each other what they have learned to do with the device). In fact, the survey found

that by the mid-90s the practice was widespread. In the European sample, half of the

people with answering machines used the devices at some time to filter calls.

Gender relationships in the home and ICT usage

There have been a number of different types of explanation accounting for gender

differences in the take-up and use of ICTs. For example, when the first home

computers appeared, one explanation of the reticence of women to use them related to

questions of general gender identity. The connotations and symbolism associated with

the machine at that time were, it was argued, opposed to constructed notions of

femininity (Turkle, 1988). This line of argument about the (mutual) social

construction of gender and of technology is one tradition of gender analysis that can

be found in various guises (Berg and Aune, 1993; Frissen, 1996, Rommes, 2002). For

example, several writers have tried to account for a re-occurring pattern whereby a

number of ICTs, including the Internet, were male dominated when they first

appeared but later the amount of use by males and females became more even. These

writers suggest that when women initially perceived these ICTs as ‘technologies’ they

were less comfortable with them. But when they later redefined them as ‘tools’ for

achieving some purpose in which they were interested, this helped them to feel more

at ease (Cockburn and Omrod, 1993 (on microwave ovens), Singh, 2001 and

Rommes, 2002 (on the Internet)).

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 Other hypotheses about gender and adoption of ICTs relate more directly to

gender relations specifically within the home, coming closer to some of the interests

within the domestication approach. For example, a review of French studies

concluded that the appropriation of ICTs by females seemed to be more

circumscribed. They had less knowledge of techniques. They mainly used the

technologies for functional purposes. And they were reticent to enter into a dialogue

with the machine. The review argued that in order to understand this pattern it was

important to examine what was happening in relation to wider gender roles. This

included the continued greater involvement of women in domestic labour, which

limited the spare time they had available to use ICTs (Jouet, 2000).

We might, in this light of this plea to look at general gender roles, consider an

earlier study of the women’s relation to the VCR. This argued that women resisted

learning to use the device. Women exhibited a ‘calculated ignorance’, in order to

avoid acquiring yet another domestic task - one of setting the video to record

programmes for other family members (Gray, 1992). Or to take an example from a

later Israeli study of mobile telephony, it was women rather than men who

emphasised the importance of being reachable by other household members,

reflecting a role of managing the home (Lemish and Cohen, 2003).

A different account, but still one focusing on gender relationships in the home,

came from a French study of people learning to use the Internet (LeLong and Thomas,

2001). After a discussion of male monopolization of the Internet, the authors added

that women were frequently wary of getting involved in home use, even when they

were competent. The women talked about the expertise of the main user (e.g. women

said that their male partners knew about the Internet better than them). That expertise

was also recognised in the fathers’ ability to set rules about children's use, defining

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what was tolerated, forbidden and what the priorities should be in using the Net. But

at the same time other family members had a right to claim certain services from the

male expert - to ask him to do something for them on-line.

In fact, when the Internet first arrived some of the males interviewed had

actually been enthusiastic about getting other household members to learn to use it.

But this project was usually abandoned. In part this was because female partners

showed less interest but it was also because, it often seemed to the researchers, they

females did not want to enter into the situation of being a novice in relation to the

(male) expert (a process also observed in one of the examples given in a Dutch study

by Rommes, 2002). For the authors this was important, in the light of discourses

about unequal access, if as a consequence it helped to maintain a gendered division of

labour10.

Managing relationships with the outside world

Some of the earliest empirical analyses of traditional telephony drew attention to the

fact that the women make more of the social calls that bind households into social

networks (Rakow, 1988; Moyal 1989), a role also observed in later British and French

studies (e.g. Lacohée and Anderson, 2001; Mercier, 2001). The latter French study

puts this into context by pointing out that women are responsible for maintaining

social links in general and do so with letters as well. So this behaviour is not unique to

the phone (Mercier, 2001). These studies repeatedly find that, overall, women call

more often, for a longer time, take more pleasure in calls and treat the telephone more

as a medium for conversation, compared to men who treat it more as a tool. That said,

a more nuanced picture of how gender patterns change over the life course will be

provided the chapter eight.

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 So what happens with the arrival of the mobile phone and e-mail – the latter

especially through access at work? While many people had always made private calls

from the workplace, the French study cited above found that these technologies led to

an increasing number of such private communications11(Mercier, 2001). Some of the

quotes from the qualitative interviews also provided examples of people saying that

when they had a few minutes free at work they might send a social e-mail. Or if they

had a few minutes to spare in the workday (and plenty of ‘free’ minutes on their

mobile that go with the tariff package) they might make a social call on the mobile

phone.

Part of the reason for this increase in male social communication was that they

simply have more access to the technologies, especially e-mail, through work. As the

researcher pointed out, if that were the only factor, would this changing balance of

calls between males and females be only transitory? As women also obtained more

access to these technologies, would they take back their traditional role as

‘ambassadors of the home’?

However, this is not the only factor. Another, he argued, was that while women

preferred the transparency of the phone, the way it felt ‘natural’, men actually took

some pleasure in interacting with the technology. Using e-mail required some

technical competence. The multiplicity of functions on the mobile differentiated it

from the fixed phone. One parallel that comes to mind was the social communications

of ham radio users. The latter enjoyed the very act of achieving communication

through using the technology.

The French study described how the characteristics of communications by

mobile and e-mail often followed a ‘masculine model’. These were due partly, but

only partly, to the work contexts in which the calls were made (including the other

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activities people were involved in when working, the ambience of this space, etc.).

Such a context encouraged speed, efficiency and an emphasis on the functionality of

the exchange, treating the media as tools rather than as channels for developing a

conversation. This form of communication often involved conveying precise

information. It rarely entailed making contact just to have a chat.

Given the above discussion of gender roles and managing social relationships

outside the home, it seems an appropriate moment to add some critical reflections

arising from another French study (Segalen, 1999). This qualitative study looked at

the contact between three generations, all of whom were adult (indeed, some of the

youngest had children themselves). In the study, the generations were called the ‘old’,

the ‘pivotals’ and the ‘young’.

Looking at phone communication between the grandparents and their adult

children (the old and the pivitols in this generational chain), usually contact was

between mothers and daughters. Given the latter were often working and even had

grandchildren of their own, there were many examples when calls were kept short,

apart from exceptional circumstances such as sickness and births. Calls were often

made to check how the grandparents were getting on, especially if they were alone.

Meanwhile the grandparents were often hesitant about calling because they thought it

might disturb their children. Nevertheless, they appreciated receiving phone calls,

especially if they did not have a large circle of siblings to call. Some of the children

(the pivotals) observed that their parents complained that they did not call them

enough. The children sometimes resented this demand as being a burden.

Turning to relations between the grandparents and grandchildren (the old and

the young), this was often mediated by the pivotals. The grandparents might be in

direct contact with certain grandchildren with whom they were particularly close. But

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some grandchildren once again saw calls to grandparents as a duty and a burden.

Sometimes, because of the gap of two generations, some social mobility had taken

place and the generations no longer shared the same values or mutual expectations.

Some grandparents were so removed from their grandchildren in every sense of the

word that they did not understand the behaviour of this age group and sometimes they

were annoyed at the degree to which the young spent time calling friends.

Occasionally, the telephone relationship, instead of bringing the generations together

could further poison the rapport between the two sides. Some grandparents preferred

to send a card for birthdays rather than call. Some calls from grandchildren to

grandparents seemed like formal ritualised acts, devoid of content and emotion.

Rather than bringing the generations together, they marked the distance between

them.

Lastly, the authors considered relations between the parents and the adult

children (the pivotals and the young). Again, much of the contact was between mother

and daughter. This was often very positive, preserving independence while

maintaining contact. But for some of the young such contact was again felt to be a

duty. Some parents now complained they were not called often enough by their

children, whereas the children thought that they did call them enough. In particular,

the sons were the ones least likely to call, which sometimes led to more bitterness and

complaints. For some children dealing with the in-laws (pivotals) could also be

difficult if the culture of that family was different. Meanwhile, some of the male

children, in particular, considered the calls from their mothers to be an interference in

their private lives. When they did talk to their mothers, what was for the females ‘idle

talk’ or ‘chatter’ was perceived as ‘twaddle’ or ‘ramblings’ by the males. In other

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words, telephoning (or its absence) could itself be an object of conflict leading to

rancour and bitterness.

Sociability within the home

There are multi-level, originally North American-based, debates about the effect of

Internet use on various forms of social relationships. Many of these relationships are

with people outside the home. Hence, this aspect will be covered in chapter five on

social networks. But we can take note even at this stage that several different

elements, and several different debates or discourses, are at work here. These include

debates about whether the Internet increases isolation or leads to more sociability, and

the consequences for social well-being and ones quality of life. They cover

discussions about sources of social support in daily life. And they deal with issues of

civic involvement and participation in society and communities. As well as measuring

our links to others beyond the home, the discussions refer to evidence concerning

measures of psychological experiences such as loneliness, stress and depression.

Amongst these discussions, albeit with a lower profile in the overall debates, are

references to what we might call, for want of a better word, ‘sociability within the

home’.

This concern about technology’s impact on family life actually has a longer

history than the Internet. For example, we have the literature claiming that television

had led to a decline in family activities (Nie, 2001). We should pause here to draw

attention to how this theme reoccurs within other chapters. In chapter three, on

children, we saw the specific concern about the impact of ICT use on children’s time

for other activities. But that discussion, again, included a package of elements such as

children’s general sociability (with other children) and their time for creative and

imaginative play. Meanwhile, in chapter nine, on the careers of ICTs, we will look at

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the issue of time displacement, where the arguments concern how technology is

taking time away from other activities in daily life.

What is being considered in this section is specifically time ‘for the family’ (or

for partners). Taking the North American figures, if people are now spending 10-15

hours a week on-line there is the question of where this time is coming from. One

approach, backed up by empirical studies, has been to argue that only part of it comes

from displacement of other activities. Some of it must come from social time spent

with others, including the family (Nie, 2001)12.

Before the Internet emerged as a mass market, related concerns occurred in

discussions of the effects of early computers (e.g. Turkle, 1984, reflecting upon its

consequences for teenagers and hackers). These anxieties were picked up in media

coverage referring to ‘computer addiction’ and even to ‘computer widows’13 (i.e. the

female partners of very enthusiast male computer users, who spent a large amount of

time at their machines). Worries about the antisocial, solitary nature of Internet,

reflected the particular concern about males, especially, devoting more time to their

engagement with technologies rather than using that time to develop their social

skills.

The first point to make in response to these concerns is that, literally, not all the

time interacting with the PC was an isolated activity. The US Homenet study and

Israeli research both described the degree of sociability around the PC in the home,

noting the various occasions when it can bring families together (Frohlich and Kraut,

2003; Mesch, 2003).

Turning now to the more recent Internet debates, one first observation is that a

range of different measurements appears to be involved here. Sometimes we are

looking at self-reports of a decline in sociability (i.e. asking people whether they think

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there has been a decline after adoption). Some studies compared non-users with users,

or users who used the Internet for different amounts of time, looking to see if there

were differences in the time they spent with their family. Sometimes we are looking at

(relatively small-scale) panel studies, charting the time use of the same people as they

move from being non-users to users (Kraut et al, 1998).

If we look more closely at what is being measured, the Homenet study

measured ‘family communication’ in terms of (self-reported) minutes spent

communicating with family members (Kraut et al, 1998). That research found the

greater use of the Internet was associated with a subsequent decline in family

communication. In other studies ‘time spent with family’ was measured (which is

obviously slightly different from ‘family communication’). In some surveys, Internet

use appeared to correlate with less time spent with the family (Nie, 2001; Nie et al,

2002). Yet others found no significant differences in ‘family conversation time’

(Robinson et al, 2002). A British longitudinal study involving time use dairies focused

on time spent on different activities, including various activities in the home. This

concluded that there was no evidence that people who now have Internet access were

spending less time in ‘social’ activities in the household (Anderson and Tracey, 2001,

2002). But of course, in itself, measuring these social activities is yet another different

measure of sociability in the home.

A second observation about this mixed evidence is that, apart from the range of

different measures being employed, there are methodological issues that have been

discussed in these debates. For example, there are problems with the self-reporting of

time use (Gershuny, 2001; Nie et al, 2002) and because of this, with the reporting of

changes in time use. From its qualitative interviews, the above British study found

that in general, participants found it difficult to answer questions about time

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displacement and ‘even the heaviest users felt that any displacement was marginal at

most’ (Anderson and Tracey, 2001, p.264).

Next, as researchers would acknowledge, there is the fundamental problem in

estimating change in people’s lives (i.e. impacts) from a survey that is made at one

point in time (Robinson et al, 2002). This compares different groups of people (e.g.

Net and non-Net users). The problem is that they might be different kinds of people in

other respects, apart from just being on-line or not. Internet users might simply have a

different social profile from non-users. For example, they might have been less (or

perhaps more) sociable within their families in the first place, before they even went

on-line. Therefore, if there were to be an apparent association between Internet use

and being less sociable, this would not prove that the first necessarily caused the

second. Even in the early Homenet study, the researchers argued that in principle

other variables could be at work influencing both family communication and Internet

use. One attempt to deal with this problem is via multivariate analysis, to control for

other factors being at work, such as education, age, marital status, etc. (Nie et al,

2002). The difficulty is that there might still be factors at work that are not

anticipated. It is for this reason that some analysts have argued that the only way to

avoid this whole problem is by charting changes relating to the same people over time

in longitudinal studies (Gershuny, 2001).

It is worth pointing out that a further, emerging, methodological problem may

arise as regards measuring time on the Internet. It is one thing to calculate blocks of

time when we log on because they show up more clearly in time use dairies.

However, if we move more and more to a situation where the Internet is always on,

some Internet use might become more fragmented, as we spend a few seconds or

minutes here and there checking things or sending quick messages.

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 This leads into the question of whether time spent with other is the (only)

appropriate measure of sociability? As in chapter two’s discussion of how the

unevenness of experience of ICTs is measured, should we not be asking about the

nature of that experience, rather then just the time involved? Let us take an example to

demonstrate a principle. In chapter three on children and ICTs, some of the writers on

the social construction of childhood argued the households have become more

democratic, less hierarchical and now give more voice to children. In which case, one

could argue that even if, hypothetically, time spent on family sociability were to have

declined, the experience of the remaining time is nevertheless qualitatively better than

when children were ‘seen and not heard’. In other words, time itself is not the only

consideration if we start to think about the quality of the interactions that constitute

sociability.

Finally, while this whole debate shows a concern about potential declining

time for family sociability, the latter is not treated in a critical manner. In other words,

family sociability is automatically treated as a good thing that we might be losing

through technology. The French study discussed in more depth in chapter three on

children and ICTs might cause us to reflect just a little upon this. These researchers

looked at (early) teenage use of the phone and in an empirically based typology

identified the heaviest phone users as being those whose parents were trying to exert

the most parental control of their behaviour. The teenagers were actually using the

phone to escape interaction with their parents, to escape ‘family sociability’,

preferring to interact with their friends even if they could not physically be with them

(Martin and de Singly, 2000). This example, as well as the others discussed in this

chapter, returns us to a theme of the entire book. Family or household interaction is

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complex and can be viewed from different perspectives. In which case, any evaluation

of changes in this interaction needs to reflect this.

Conclusions

Looking at the interpersonal relationships around ICTs, including the tensions and

issues that emerge, helps us to understand actual patterns of use. While technologies

may have potential to be used in a variety of ways, we can also start to appreciate the

social limitations on that use.

We saw this in the attempts to regulate calls from and to the traditional

domestic telephone. But now that the mobile phone and Internet have become more

widespread we should ask what effect this has had on strategies aimed at controlling

outgoing and incoming communications. How has managing communication become

more complex? What bearing have new communications options had on the issues

around the home phone that were described above? In what ways have they

exacerbated or reduced any tensions? Or, indeed, has the arrival of these

communications options raised new issues of control and led to new, or on-going

experimentation with strategies for managing communication in everyday life? We

will return to some of these questions in the chapter seven when considering

behaviour in public spaces.

While gender is addressed at various points throughout the book, it receives

more attention in this chapter, especially in terms of social relationships in the home.

If we turn specifically to gender and communications, here at least we are starting to

see research considering the consequences of mobile phone and e-mail for managing

relationships with the outside world. This asks whether gender roles might be

changing. Once again we see the tensions involved in interpersonal relations in the

study of communication with the extended family. This, in fact suggests complex

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gender relations - for example, when even the communication between mothers and

daughters can be problematic. To what extent and in what ways, if at all, has the

spread of the mobile phone and Internet had any bearing upon some of these

particular communications?

Lastly, we saw the question about the social consequences of the Internet:

whether it has affected sociability within the home, whether time spent on-line has

detracted from time spent with family members. It is not that new a concern.

Antecedents existed in the fears voiced in relation to the television and computer.

Clearly there are a host of methodological issues behind these debates. But in

addition, the whole issue of family sociability needs also to be treated with a more

critical eye. This fits in with the attention that has been given to interpersonal tensions

as one key theme of this chapter.

Endnotes

1. This paper was based on the study of teleworkers and single parents, reported

elsewhere in this book.

2. Although this chapter is primarily about the traditional fixed phone line, it is worth

adding that the issue of controlling (potential incoming) communication emerges in

relation to the mobile phone. For example, many people selectively give out their

mobile numbers, they sometimes decide not to carry the mobile or the manage calls

by switching them to voicemail (Licoppe and Heutin, 2001).

3. In one case, exasperated parents ended up installing a second line for their children,

and made them pay for calls between themselves. The result was that disagreements

over bills then took place amongst the children rather than between the parents and

children.

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4. One parent got so frustrated that he disabled his daughter’s handset so that she

could not make outgoing calls from her bedroom. However, she managed to

sometimes evade that control by initiating calls on the main phone and then switching

them to her bedroom phone to continue her conversation there at leisure.

5. While the original chapter reporting this is in Italian (Fortunati, 1998), the English

version is available at http://members.aol.com/leshaddon/Date.html.

6.The four separate questions concerned whether people received complaints (a)

because of the cost of their calls, (b) because they made or received too many calls,

(c) because they blocked the line and (d) because they made too many unnecessary

calls.

7. The three questions asked were: (a) whether interviewees made their own calls at

the times when cheaper tariffs operated; (b) if they limited their own use; (c) if they

tried to persuade other people in the household to limit their calls.

8. These were (a) blocking incoming communication in some way (e.g. by leaving the

phone off its resting place (‘off the hook’) so that the call could not arrive, turning the

ringer off etc.), (b) not answering calls, (c) getting someone else to answer calls and

(d) asking people who phoned into the home to avoid calling at certain times.

9. This involved hearing who was calling before deciding whether or not to answer or

instead to let the caller leave a message (also discussed in Lacohée and Anderson,

2001)

10. A related point was raised in a Dutch study by Rommel (2003). In this qualitative

study, women who attended an Internet course had tried learning from their partners

but it had not worked out – hence they went on the formal course instead.

11. Plant (2002) also argues that males were making more social calls now because of

the mobile phone.

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12. But other US studies find contradicting results. In one, 88% said the Internet had

little impact on time with family (or friends) (Katz et al, 2001). In another, more than

half of Internet users actually reported more communication with family after going

on-line (Howard et al, 2001). In yet another, 92% of users said that they spent the

same amount of time together with household members as before (UCLA, 2000).

13. In fact, one British study looked specifically at this issue in response to these

media claims. The findings might lead us to reflect on current debates about the

Internet, especially when they concern heavier users of the Internet. Basically, people

who developed intense relationships to ICTs such as the computer were likely to have

had equally intense involvement in other activities before the PC arrived in their life

(Shotton 1989). The heavy users of this study had not actually changed their patterns

of sociability. They had switched from old interests and hobbies to being computer

enthusiasts. Moreover, their partners had already known that they had this orientation

when they had first formed a couple.

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Chapter five. Social Networks and ICTs

Just as it was important to look beyond the individual in order to appreciate the

influence of other household members, so it is important to consider the general

influence of wider social networks, as we did more specifically in the case of youth

peers. This provides another context for understanding an individual’s actions,

choices and experience of ICTs.

We start by asking in what different ways social networks have a bearing upon

people’s interest in and appreciation of ICTs. When do social networks actually

supply the ICTs that enter people’s homes? In what different ways do they then

support actual usage?

Next, the chapter considers extending the domestication framework beyond the

home, asking what we would need to know to appreciate the processes by which ICTs

are ‘domesticated’ by social networks.

The remainder of the chapter makes a link to North American debates seen in

the previous chapter on the social consequences of ICT. But now it examines

concerns about the effects of the Internet on people’s relationships with their social

networks. Part of that discussion related to concerns about the solitary nature of

Internet use. So first we must once again ask whether such use is always solitary or

indeed asocial. In this respect, what can we learn from such claims about previous

ICT use – especially computer use? And then what do the balance of findings now

suggest about the influence of Internet use on people’s relation with their social

networks, taking into account some issues around the method and measurements

involved?

The other part of this debate concerns the question of whether the

communications options enabled by the Internet leads to on-line communication

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displacing off-line communication. Is such a displacement actually occurring? How

should we evaluate the quality of on-line compared to off-line communications and its

role in our lives? This in turn leads to further questions. To what the extent do people

build strong relationships through on-line contact? Does these lead to off-line contact?

To what extent does communication via the Internet help to sustain social networks?

And what types of relationships does it help to maintain or support? Lastly, by way of

contrast, does mobile phone communication suggest a very different outcome from

the Internet debate. Might the very weak ties that exist with strangers around us

diminish further because of the mobile?

Social Networks supporting ICT acquisition and use

Social networks can provide one route by which we acquire ICTs. Such networks

provide a means through which information about technologies and services can be

disseminated. They can actually stimulate interest, as when people mention that they

do not want to be left behind by their other network members. British research

observed that if some people in social networks own a technology this increases the

likelihood of other people in the same network owning that technology (Tracey,

1999).

Social networks can enable people to gain familiarity with technologies. One

European five-country qualitative study of the Internet showed that even many non-

users had actually tried out the Net or had seen it in action at the homes of friends and

family1 (Haddon, 1999a). Some non-users had even asked people in their social

network to look up things for them on-line and through this process they came to

appreciate the Web’s usefulness. A Canadian qualitative study drawing attention to

the same processes referred to the role of the ‘warm expert’ in many people’s stories

about how they acquired ICTs. These warm experts were friends or relatives who had

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relatively more expertise than the people interviewed, but who were also close to

them and willing to help a novice (Bakardjieva, 2001)

However, the opposite side of the coin is where social networks are not able to

support interest. Some people in the European study moved in social circles whose

members were not interested in or familiar with the Internet. For example, sometimes

their work colleagues were not required to use the Internet for work. Or else they had

retired and many of the people of their generation were not familiar with the on-line

world. As a result, even if they showed some interest themselves it was difficult for

them to know where to start. There was no-one to turn to for help (Haddon, 1998c).

Social networks influence ICT adoption in yet other ways. People acquire ICTs

from members of their networks (Bakardjieva, 2001). This is perhaps especially true

of relatives, and more so of close family. British studies from the early 1990s pointed

to the small gifts that people can receive from relatives, such as phone handsets

(Haddon, 2000b). And a number of the young elderly studied had acquired more

expensive ICTs, such as VCRs, as presents from their adult children (Haddon and

Silverstone, 1996). Later research made similar observations about mobile phones and

even computers (for example, when someone in the extended family upgraded and

passed on the old machine). Sometimes the recipients would not have considered

getting ICTs if they had not received them as a gift (Tracey, 1999).

After acquisition, social networks can continue to support the use of ICTs. For

example, numerous studies have indicated how members of social networks can

provide practical support, such as helping to set-up equipment and software or solve

technical problems (Haddon, 1999a; Tracey, 1999; Lelong and Beaudouin, 2001;

Bakardjieva, 2001). In fact, in British research even some teleworkers mentioned that

their social networks were important in this respect. Their workplace-based technical

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support staff could not always support employees who worked at home (Haddon and

Silverstone, 19932). Once again, if this expertise does not exist in a particular person’s

social networks, such technical difficulties can be difficult to overcome.

Apart from supporting usage, social networks can also influence the form it

takes (Tracey, 1999). We saw this in the earlier chapter on children and youth. Young

people’s perceptions of what counted as interesting websites to visit could be

influenced by their peers. As one analyst put it, the social network members who help

people to learn about the Internet are passing on what they had discovered, including

‘their definitions of the new technology crystallised from their own experience’

(Bakardjieva, 2001, p.7).

If we turn specifically to the case of telecoms, the European P-903 study

showed that the structure of social networks could influence usage in the sense of

having a bearing upon their members’ communication patterns3 (Smoreda and

Thomas, 2001). Meanwhile, the 5-country qualitative study of the Internet found that

lack of access to certain social networks could be restrictive. If one is the only person

accessing the Net within one’s social networks then this can limit the range of use

since there is no-one to act as a guide to the types of things that can be achieved on-

line (Haddon, 1999a).

Researchers have tried to differentiate further the influences within social

networks, rather than just talk about the role of social networks in general. To give a

flavour of this type of analysis, some have looked at the different influence of friends

vs. family or the special relations between adult children and their parents. Sometimes

overlapping with this, others analysts have focused on strong and weak ties, with one

review arguing how weak ties - meaning the members of one’s network who are not

close, such as acquaintances - were useful for providing access to new resources and

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ideas (Tracey, 1999). Looking at communications patterns, yet other researchers have

explored contact with local vs. distant social network members, changes in social

networks over the life course (such as teenagers’ and young adults’ larger circles of

friends) and the impact of residential relocation on social networks (Smoreda and

Thomas, 2001).

Finally, it is worth observing that many of the approaches to analysing social

networks that have been outlined above stress how individuals and households are

influenced by their networks. Looked at another way, the implication is that

individuals and households support their own social network’s experience of ICTs.

Some of their own usage is on behalf of friends, relatives etc. More generally, giving

support, advising and showing their expertise within these social networks itself

constitutes part of people’s very experience of these technologies.

The domestication of ICTs in social networks

To illustrate the process of how ICTs found a role within social networks of peers we

will consider the history of the first home computers in the UK during the early

1980s. Part of their appeal, leading to a boom in 1983, was fuelled by the

futurologists, politicians, technology enthusiasts and media analysts who portrayed

these machines as an icon of the coming IT revolution. Many people purchased these

early computers because they were concerned not to be passed by. Parents certainly

did not want their children to miss out (Haddon and Skinner, 1991). But one then has

to make sense of the fact that for many years the main use of these machines was

actually for playing games. Even suppliers were concerned about the extent to which

those devices were becoming just games machines4.

Electronic games first appeared in public arcades and were originally adopted

by some arcade owners as replacements for pinball. It was here that (some) male

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youth collectively developed the culture of game-playing, competing to get high

scores, learning tricks and strategies from others and swapping tips. When home

games machines appeared and later when home computers became a platform for

playing games, this culture continued. For example, interviews with British youth

revealed that many of the boys who were playing games in the 80s played at times in

isolation. But they also talked about games at school. They swapped games. They

compared notes as regards tactics. And they passed on the information about ways to

cheat or get around games problems - information that was starting to appear in game

magazines. By contrast, while girls may have played games, on the whole these other

layers of interaction were absent amongst their social networks. Games were not the

same topic of conversation as they were for boys. The general reason for looking at

such game- and computer-related interactions and practices is they help explain

gender differences in the popularity of games and home computers at that time

(Haddon, 1992). For the purposes of this section, it underlines the importance of

considering the experience of consumption and relationships outside the home that

was first discussed in the chapter on youth.

Later research on mobile telephony amongst youth, reported in chapter three,

has also emphasised the importance of peers as contributing to the popularity of the

mobile amongst this group. It drew attention to collective, mobile phone-related

practices that were in many ways the equivalent of the computer-related ones outlined

above. Sometimes, it has been argued that particular sub-cultures within youth played

a major role in creating interest. For example, Japanese researchers reported how the

‘Kogyaru’, street-savy high school students, ‘in the early nineties and then with

mobile phones in the later half of the nineties pioneered and popularised recreational

uses of mobile communication, first with pagers’ (Ito and Daisuke, 2003).

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 If one wants to extend the domestication framework to ask how social processes

amongst networks help shape the consumption of ICTs, there are some immediate

challenges. Friendship ties, or the sometimes looser relations between young people,

are very different from the relationship between family members. Friendship

networks are usually not so bounded, as it is not always clear who is part of a group.

While the relationships involved can be intense, they are often much weaker than

family ones. They have a shorter history and are in many cases more temporary,

without the depth that comes when people’s biographies are so intertwined as in the

case of the family. They do not occur in the same, shared space of a home although

they may involve the colonization of certain public spaces. And they do not entail the

equivalent financial relationships that exist in families. On the other hand, as in

families, these relationships do have some shared histories and to varying degrees

elements of shared identities. They have their own politics and understandings of

what is appropriate. And they involve the use of strategies for managing relationships

vis-à-vis peers.

Bearing this in mind, we can at least pose the question of how ICTs such as

mobile phones are domesticated within such social networks. At this stage, without

the longitudinal study of such change, we can only ask questions. For example, what

are the processes by which ICTs acquire meaning within such groups (over and above

the marketing of firms)? What, for example, leads mobiles or particular mobiles to

become fashionable (or not)? What forms of negotiation take place within social

networks and how do collective practices emerge? Are there rules about use and if so

how are the policed? What type of subsequent career do mobiles have within a group

context? In other words the general types of question one would pose within a

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domestication framework can be applied when trying to investigate how social

networks network come to consume ICTs.

The Internet’s effects on sociability in social networks

There are two concerns about the possible negative effects of the Internet on social

networks:

1. As a solitary activity, time spent interacting with the Internet may detract from

time spent socialising with others.

2. People may use the communication facilities of the Internet to socialize with

others on-line at the cost of the time they would otherwise spend interacting

with those whom they normally see face-to-face (and speak to by phone). Part

of this concern is related to fears that the quality of those on-line interactions

and relationships are not as good as off-line ones.

This section will deal with the first of these arguments, but it will become clearer

why it is important to mention the second from the start. We will start with some

observations about asocial Internet use, then briefly review some evidence and reflect

on the methodological issues.

The previous chapter touched on a number of reasons why we should be a little

wary of assuming that computer or Internet use is always an antisocial activity. In the

chapter on children and youth, the fact that young people interacted with each other in

media-rich bedrooms showed this. Canadian and British studies have also discussed

young people’s sociability in front of the screen when on-line (Millerand et al, 1999;

Livingstone, 2001). We can develop the point further by adding that even time spent

alone in front of the screen can have a bearing upon time spent socialising later on. If

we go back to the early British study of the home computer, we saw a whole range of

computer-related activities at school and in other venues outside the home. In relation

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to the Internet, we saw how it was peers who shaped values about what counts as

good sites and sharing information about these. Admittedly, both of the above

arguments relate specifically to young people. Yet, these observations of social

dimensions relating to time spent on-line still need to be made.

When we now look at contemporary Internet studies what we at first find is

conflicting evidence. For example, one US survey based study reported that heavier

Internet use leads to decreased time with (family and) friends (Nie, 2001). Another

much publicized piece of research, the Homenet study, initially reported that Internet

use led to a decline in local social networks and greater loneliness (Kraut et al, 1998),

although a follow-up study of this same group showed that this general effect later

disappeared (Kiesler et al, 2000; Kraut et al 2002)5.

In contrast, and stressing the sociability benefits of the Internet, we find the

studies citing evidence that Internet use actually led to increased communication with

local friends6 (e.g. Kavanaugh and Patterson, 2001; Howard et al, 2001).

Alternatively, we find responses to particular survey questions which suggested that

Internet use actually had little impact on time spent with friends (Katz et al, 2001).

They neither increased nor decreased contact with people either in person or by phone

(Wellman et al, 2001). In a review that goes far beyond the space that can be allocated

to the subject in this book, the authors argued that on balance it looks as if the Internet

expanded the interactions with our social networks (Katz and Rice, 2002b)

As regards the methodologies of Internet studies, the issues are the same as in

the previous chapter on sociability within the family, given that the same studies often

consider both friends and family. Therefore, we find discussions of the best measures

(Nie, 2001), arguments that not all the studies use representative samples (pointed out

in Katz et al, 2001) and doubts about using data from self-reports (Kraut et al, 1998).

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Given that they actually attempt to measure change in behaviour over time, most

surveys use cross-sectional and not longitudinal data, opening the door for the

potential problem discussed earlier. There might be an association between variables

but causality is harder to prove. We might add that, understandably, many measures

of the phenomena being studied are possible. One study alone measured how many

times people met friends last week, the time spent with friends and the time spent

going out socially (Katz et al, 2001). One dilemma, as in the case of the digital divide,

is that one can appreciate the scope for conflicting, or at least non-comparable,

evidence. On the other hand, approaching the issue with a range of different measures

can provide a more nuanced picture of what is a complex issue.

The situation is also made more complicated by some mis-match between

certain arguments and evidence. As these debates sometimes acknowledge, the

Internet consist of more than one element. One crude division is between those parts

that have been characterised as ‘interpersonal’ (e.g. e-mail, chat) and those

characterized as ‘informational’ (e.g. the things one can do on the Web) (Kraut et al,

2003)7. Whenever the above studies measure Internet users (as opposed to non-users)

or the amount of time spent on the Internet overall, they effectively package together

the interpersonal and informational uses, just measuring ‘use’. This is despite the fact

that at the start of this section we saw that one concern (the Internet can make us more

antisocial) is really about informational uses while the other concern (that

communicating with distant others detracts from local interaction) focuses on that

interpersonal use of the Internet.

The balance of offline and online interaction

One review of some of the consequences of the Internet for social networks

summarized the pessimistic perspective that ‘online activity replaces strong social ties

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in the unmediated world with weak online ties’ (Rice, 2002, p.117). The first point we

might address is whether this replacement is actually occurring. An ‘online tie’

appears to refer to people we do not meet with off-line. And while the statement itself

does not necessarily claim that on-line interaction is with distant others, there seems

to be an assumption that this probably is the case in many of the arguments reviewed.

As a starting point, we might look at the research on telephony, space and

communication. Let us take basic voice telephony, which like the Internet has the

technological potential to connect us globally. Most fixed-line phone calls are actually

local and most phone calls are to people we already see on a regular face-to-face

basis8. For example, one French study showed how proximity and personal contact

could lead to more phone calls. In other words, we do not resort to the phone chiefly

because distance makes it difficult to meet people (Smoreda and Licoppe, 1999)9.

Most phone calls not only help to organize face-to-face meetings but they supplement

them - we phone people more whom we see, as reflected in patterns of local telephone

traffic10.

To an extent, the same appears to be true of Internet interaction. British

quantitative and qualitative studies of the Internet would reinforce that emphasis on

the importance of proximity and of contacting people we already interact with off-

line. Adults often use e-mail (and chat) to supplement face-to-face meetings,

contacting ‘local’11 friends not only for organising meetings but also in terms of gift-

giving, sending little messages to people to indicate that they are still thought about

during the time between meetings (Haddon, 2000c12). A review of studies of

children’s use of the Internet finds similar results about the dominance of on-line

contact with peers who are already known (Livingstone, 2001, 2003)

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 In such cases, using one medium of communication as opposed to another is not

always an either-or choice. One does not simply displace the other. Both are

increasingly part of a larger communications repertoire, and many people choose from

this repertoire to suit the circumstances13, albeit with constraints sometimes operating

on those choices (Haddon, 2003a). Subsequent international empirical research would

appear to confirm this, noting, in fact, positive correlations between face-to-face

contact, telephone contact and e-mail contact (Chen et al, 2002).

But even when these communications are with those who are at a distance,

many calls and messages are still to people whom we know off-line first and in some

cases with people who we will meet occasionally, such as relatives (discussed further

below). For example, the qualitative component of the European P-903 study showed

how the Internet appeared to facilitate contacts with all kinds of people one already

knew: kin, friends, and acquaintances (Mante-Meijer et al, 2001) and this was

reflected in a whole range of other studies, showing ‘Internet communication

complements real-world relations’ (Rice, 2002, p.118).

Lastly, contacts that start on-line do not always remain so. True, many do. In

this respect a variety of studies have observed that some encounters on-line are short

term and primarily ‘forms of mutual entertainment’ (Miller and Slater, 2000). Yet

people can also form strong social bonds on-line and this can also lead to off-line

contact (Kraut el al 2002, using US survey data; Miller and Slater, 2000 based on

qualitative research in Trinidad; Kanayama, 2003, based on a qualitative study in

Japan; Haddon, 2000c using British qualitative study; Rice, 2002 and Katz and Rice,

2002b, both reviewing further studies).

While on-line communication can lead to such off-line contact there still

remains a question of how significant it is. That partly depends on how you evaluate

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the evidence. One review of US surveys commented that ‘over 10% of those who

indicated they had met someone on-line went on to meet them in person and the vast

majority (85%) indicated that it was a positive experience’ (Katz and Rice,

2002b:327). But others have pointed out that developing strong relationships on-line

is comparatively rare (Kraut et al, 2002). This means that even if, in a minority of

cases, on-line contact leads to off-line contact one can at least pose the question of

how meaningful and deep a relationship this is.

The quality of on-line communication

The other part of the concern outlined above is about ‘weak’ on-line ties. This is the

view that the quality of on-line interactions and relationships is less than that of

offline ones. One review of research indicated how this assessment of the inferior

quality of computer-mediated communication has not only been an assumption in

social psychological research but also in more popular discourses. The evaluation is

largely because of claims about the limited ‘bandwidth’ of textual communication and

the anonymity of the media (Watt et al, 2002). The reviewers observed that an

equivalent critique of the quality of the medium was also made about new media in

the past, such as the telephone.

If we take a particular example of evidence cited in this debate, US researchers

reviewed a number of quantitative studies – of business people, of students, of

Homenet trial participants’ relations with social networks and of those participating in

on-line communities. They compared how these groups evaluated on-line and offline

relationships (Cummings et al, 2002). The conclusion was that computer-mediated

communication, and in particular e-mail, was less valuable than face-to-face contact

and the telephone for building and sustaining close social relationships. In particular,

from looking at listservs on the Internet the researchers concluded that some of the

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on-line communities studied in earlier Internet research, which seemed to be very

active, might well have been interesting cases. But they seemed to be the exceptions

rather than the rule.

Perhaps, though, we need to develop a more complex assessment of this issue of

quality. The Trinidad study described examples where there was surprisingly rich

banter on-line and the researchers were impressed by just what emotions could be

expressed through text (Miller and Slater, 2000). A Japanese study of an elderly on-

line community made a similar point, observing that the participants were used to

text-based communication. They could express emotion though the use of such

devices as archaic language styles, dialect and poetry (Kanayama, 2003). Two

reviews of a range of studies also pointed out how on-line communication could be

made very personal and socially rich. In fact, it might not be any less personal or

‘real’ than face-to-face communication (Rice, 2002; Watt et al, 2002).

A different way of approaching this issue would be to note that the emotional

closeness of on-line contacts might not be what is important for some purposes. We

might consider here communication with communities of interest, where weak ties

may nevertheless be meaningful. Indeed, it can be quite important simply to know

that there are others out there in similar circumstances, for example, facing a

particular health problem, and that they can share experiences (Bakardjieva and

Smith, 2001).

Finally, when we start to consider contact with people we already know, on-line

communication may be good enough to help maintain relationships. For example, a

number of the American studies found that using the Internet increased contact with

distant friends and relatives (Boneva, 2001; Kraut et al, 1998, Howard et al, 2001; an

AOL survey reported in Rice, 2002). In one piece of research nearly a third of

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interviewees (31%) said that they now had more communication with family

members whom they previously did not contact often (Howard et al, 200114). The

Trinidad study also reported that the Internet led to more contact with such distant

relatives (Miller and Slater, 2000). In particular, on-line communication could take on

even more significance for migrants and diaspora. The Trinidadians living abroad

used it to stay in touch and the researchers pointed in particular to the role of e-mail

for ‘reactivating family ties that had fallen into abeyance’ (Miller and Slater, 2000:

56). Meanwhile, a Canadian study looking at the motivations for going on-line

described how e-mail and on-line chat were seen as practical ways to restore and

maintain contact with family abroad (Bakardjieva and Smith, 2001)

Looking beyond relatives, British qualitative studies showed how e-mail

enabled people to maintain contact with other socially distant parts of the network

when that might otherwise have been lost. E-mail has even been used to resurrect

contact with previous social networks, such as old school friends (Haddon, 2000c)15.

In fact, in one AOL survey, 41% of participants reported that they had renewed such

contacts (Rice, 2002). Meanwhile, one Canadian study found evidence when people

move house to a new area, ex-neighbours living some distance away can still use the

Internet to provide on-line social support (Hampton and Wellman, 2001).

The mobile phone and patterns of sociability

Various writers have drawn attention to the psychological withdrawal of mobile

phone users from the immediate physical social space and those co-present through

a preference to interact with spatially ‘distant’ others (Fortunati, 1997). In some

respects this is takes us in a different direction from claims about the effects of the

Internet on sociability. Like the traditional fixed phone, the mobile phone often

gives us more contact with people who are socially close to us, who we may well

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 see regularly, and who are network members with whom we have strong ties. This

can be seen in patterns of mobile phone traffic and was also found in a study of

Japanese webphone use (a mobile phone capable of Internet access and sending e-

mail), where e-mail communications were once again sent to well known persons

(Miyata et al, 2003)

This type of communication is indeed sociable. Norwegian research has argued

how such intensive communications where ‘one has a running sense of the other’s

location and situation’ can reinforce such social ties (Ling, 2004). But it is a certain

kind of sociability that excludes other forms. The author referred to the notion of a

‘walled community’ to convey the idea that when communication is increasingly

aimed at a limited number of people we know well, this limits our opportunity to

‘establish new ties in one’s co-located situation’. As French researchers arguing in a

somewhat similar vein have pointed out, since people’s attention is limited, this shift

in the balance to a more ‘connected’ relationship with an intimate few can be at the

expense of making the effort to interact with strangers (Rivère and Licoppe, 2003).

Both the French and Norwegian research drew upon the work of Sennett (1986),

describing the growing incivility within society. This leads to the question of

whether such a process of interacting with a few close others detracts from the

public sphere itself and from the social capital of society (Ling, forthcoming).

Conclusions

This chapter started by indicating the various ways in which social networks can have

a bearing upon people’s experience of ICTs. They do this through stimulating initial

interest, through providing a way to become familiar with technologies and services

as well as appreciate their usefulness, through recommendations and gifts and through

assisting and shaping usage. However, if social network support can be a resource,

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lacking the networks that perform these roles can itself contribute to the unevenness

of experience discussed at the start of this book.

The next step was to make the network itself the focus of attention, rather than

the individual or household within it, just as some general studies of social networks

do. Then we can ask how social networks as collectivities adopt ICTs, and how

practices relating to these technologies emerge. In other words, we could extend the

domestication framework by asking about domestication by groups other than the

household. We saw this demonstrated on a large scale with the example of gender and

games, looking even beyond more narrowly defined networks of people who know

each other. This illustrated the point that it was sometimes important to look at

relations outside the home in order to explain some social phenomenon. In this

instance, it helped account for gender differences in the early usage of home

computers arising from the different meaning that games had in networks of boys and

girls.

The final section looked at the specific debates about the effects of the Internet

on our relationships with social networks, which stressed the potential displacement

of some interactions by others. The first concern was that the Internet might reduce

people’s sociability by cutting down the time they spent interacting with their social

networks. This raises some by now familiar methodological debates, to which we

might add that to measure simply ‘use’ of the Internet or time spent interacting with

the screen may be misleading. Using the Internet (or other ICTs such as the computer)

may not always be as antisocial as is portrayed. Teenagers could be sociable in terms

of interacting in front of the screen as well as talking about the Internet when not on-

line.

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 The second concern is that the Internet could lead to people spending more

time interacting with distant others to the detriment of face-to-face contact, couched

in terms of weak mediated on-line ties displacing strong off-line ones. Again, there is

a question about how fruitful it is to pose the question in this way. Much Internet

based communication is actually with people we already know. The medium has

become just one more channel in our overall communications repertoire, used

alongside other channels. Moreover, it is questionable whether we should simply talk

about ‘weak’ mediated on-line ties. The picture is more complex. Whatever its

‘quality’, communicating on-line can be useful for some purposes and it can exhibit a

richness in certain circumstances.

Endnotes

1. This study took place in 1998 in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the

UK. Commissioned by NCR, it involved twenty in-depth household interviews in

each country.

2. As in the case of the single parent and young elderly studies, this research from

1992-3 involved dairies and two sets of interviews with twenty households. The

report is available at http://members.aol.com/leshaddon/Date.html.

3. Use of the fixed phone, e-mail and the mobile related to network features such as

social network size, the percentage of family vs. friends and the percentage of local

network members.

4. By way of clarification, most UK computers sold at that time were cheaper and had

less capacity and functional capability than computers being sold in North America.

This history of computers and games is based on my doctorate research 1984-1988,

involving the use of secondary sources to construct history of computers and games,

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and interviews with people working in the British computer and game industry, as

well as interviews with users, including young people, and observational studies. The

work was supplemented by contemporary survey evidence. The doctorate can be

accessed through http://members.aol.com.Index.html, the history of home computers

appears in Haddon, 1988a, their use by youth appears in Haddon 1992, and the history

of games appears in Haddon 1988b, 1993 and1999c.

5. The authors argue a number of processes may be at work here. One refers to the

specific nature of the early sample – the results may have been different for different

groups. Another process may be that it has one effect in the short term but another in

the longer term. A third is that the first findings may have been influenced by the

nature of the Internet at that time. Fewer family and friends were on-line in 1995-96

compared to the time of the follow-up study in 1998. They also conducted a second

panel study to demonstrate differential effects for different groups. Extraverts and

those with more social support benefited more from Internet access, including in

terms of various relationships with their social networks.

6. European data from the P-903 project would match this. Internet users have larger

social networks than non-users and long-term users report more frequent sociability

with friends (Smoreda and Thomas, 2001). The British Telecom longitudinal study

also found a small increase in social life following take up of the Internet (Gershuny,

2001).

7. The authors themselves are critical of aggregating Internet data and acknowledge

the crudity of this division between interpersonal and informational in order to make a

general point.

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8. This point was also true historically, as Fischer (1992) pointed out in his American

study when reflecting on concerns that the phone favour non-local communication

over local communication.

9. Wellman, in his Canadian study, also observed that his respondents had more

frequent contact with those who lived nearby - both face-to face and by telephone

(Wellman, 1992).

10. In fact, the P-903 data reinforced the results of other studies showing that the

more you see people the more you call them (Smoreda and Thomas, 2001)

11. That acknowledged, one first caveat is that the term ‘local’ could have misleading

connotations, sometimes implying ‘in the neighbourhood’. Over a decade ago one

Canadian study has demonstrated that most friends do not live ‘locally’ in that sense

and emphasized how little face-to-face contact there is now with neighbourhood

social networks (Wellman, 1992). There is an argument that the ‘communities’ in

which we operate (socially, as opposed to spatially, defined) are more spatially

dispersed (Wellman et al, 2001). If the main interest is in social relations in which

there is regular face-to-face contact, these can be maintained over a fairly wide

geographic area, for example a large city, depending on the area over which people

operate in their daily lives. Some people only operate over a relatively small,

contained area while others regularly travel over an area the size of London (as in,

meeting friends ‘up in town’). This has to be borne in mind in discussions of ‘local’

communication.

12. Also observed in the five-country qualitative study of the Internet (Haddon,

1999a) and in a Belgian study of young adults (Hartmann, 2003).

13. Others have commented on how we can move between different modes as our

relationships with people evolve (Ling, 2000).

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14. And a similar figure, 2% was found in the Pew Survey in 2002 (Horrigan et al,

2002a)

15. One of the striking observations about proximity that emerges from that

qualitative material is how often interviewees referred to their use of e-mail to keep

contact with social network members who lived abroad. This sometimes replaced

phone calls, but it also led to additional communications that arose because of the

existence of the new medium.

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Chapter six: Time and ICTs

Our longer-term social commitments, as well as the wider social structures in which

we operate, have a bearing upon adoption and use. In this respect temporal

constraints, which have consistently received attention in British domestication

studies, are important because they have a bearing for people’s room for manoeuvre

when making decisions about ICTs.

This chapter starts specifically with the following question. How does the time

we reserve for other activities limit or shape the consumption of ICTs? Specifically,

when can time considerations influence the very adoption of ICTs? And in what ways

do they constrain usage, indeed constrain our ability to learn to use ICTs in the first

place? In answering these questions, what type of time considerations should we

examine over and above the total amount of free disposable time available to us?

The next section deals with subjective perceptions of time, since these may

influence the strategies people adopt when organising their time and their attitudes to

and use of new ICTs. Here we ask how researchers on time stress have approached

and tried to make sense of this issue of time perceptions. How has their analysis

contributed to how we might think about the ‘quality’ of time?

Finally we return to the social consequences of ICT use, dealing specifically

with effects of ICTs on how we plan and manage time. After some general

observations about our lack of knowledge of people’s time strategies, this sections

provides some case studies which deal with the degree to which we need to organise

time in advance. This leads to the following questions. To what extent, and for whom

do ICTs enable more spontaneity or alternatively create the need for the greater pre-

planning of time?

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Time influencing the adoption and use of ICTs

Disposable time

If we start with a concept from economics, people sometimes anticipate the

‘opportunity costs’ of using ICTs – i.e. they recognise that they could be partaking in

another activity instead. Anticipation of time costs can affect not only the decision to

use ICTs but also the very decision to adopt them in the first place or to invest in the

skills necessary to use the technology. This was captured in some comments from the

European P-903 study, when people were expressing their reservations about the

Internet (Klamer et al, 2000). One complained ‘It takes time to develop into an

experienced searcher’. Another added ‘If one isn’t selective and doesn’t know what

one’s looking for, surfing, information search and shopping may take too long ...and

consume disposable time.’

This whole issue of disposable time is important because to the extent that we

reserve time for activities this in turn imposes potential limits on the consumption of

ICTs. We can demonstrate this with an example from the five-country qualitative

study of Internet adopters and non-adopters (Haddon, 1999a)1. For many of the adults

interviewed, the time slot when they went on-line was often constrained by working

hours, thus occurring in the evenings or at weekends. Even some teleworkers

followed this pattern. For example, one British interviewee only allowed herself

thirty-minutes to relax and search for whatever interested her on the Internet. This

took place in the time slot after she had completed her day’s work and before she

went out socialising in the evening. For others the time slot might fall after

completing some work-related tasks at home in the early evening, or in the late

evening, relaxing at the end of the day (e.g. through socialising on-line). In other

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words, while some had unpredictable periods of free time, others had more regular

time slots for going on-line.

Occasionally those involved in the Internet industry ask whether the time people

actively spend on-line might increase substantially. One can imagine how it might

increase somewhat, and how the pattern of use might change to frequent short bursts

of activity with the ‘always on’ Internet. But, in the short term at least, how

substantially can Internet time increase for people such as the interviewees described

above if the Net competes against their commitments to and desire to be with family,

with friends and to take part in other activities inside and outside the home?

The Timing of ICT use

A number of ICTs are promoted not so much for saving time as for being able to

time-shift activities. Examples would be VCRs, answering machines and voice mail.

Or else these technologies offer temporal flexibility in that people can use them when

they want to. This includes communicating with people at the timing of their own

choice, without being constrained by fixed time schedules or the pressure to reply to

communications immediately. Examples would include Video-On-Demand, remote

banking and shopping, and (answering) asynchronous communication media such as

e-mails and text messages. Of course, by offering users more flexibility in organising

their lives, this may in turn allow them to combine activities in such a way so as to

save time.

That is the technological promise. Certainly participants in the European P-903

project realised this to some extent (Klamer et al, 2000). However, our ability to shift

time is also constrained by the social structures in which we live, even if we

acknowledge that some people have more flexible temporal patterns than others.

French analysts studying phone communication patterns found that the overall

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distribution of phone calls was still shaped by patterns of work, when shops were

open and when transport and other public services operated. To an extent this remains

so even as there are moves towards twenty-four hour, seven-day a week working and

opening hours. Influenced by the timing of work and of school, French domestic calls

start to rise at 5.00 pm peaking at 8.00-9.00 pm (De Gournay and Smoreda, 20012).

Then there is the question of synchronising time with others. For example, the

French study pointed out that teleworkers and retired people still made many phone

calls in the evening because (apart from the cheaper tariffs) that was when other

people whom they called were at home. In general communications between adults

and their (sometimes retired) parents also took place in the evening. The qualitative

part of this French study showed how calls earlier in the day were often re-directed to

the evening since people wanted a quiet period to deal with phone conversations at

more length (De Gournay and Smoreda, 2001). And of course social codes in some

countries also imply that one should not phone after 10.00 pm (Lelong and

Beaudouin, 2001).

Another French study showed that even Internet users avoided going on-line in

the early part of the evening. They did this both to keep the (single) phone line free

for incoming and outgoing calls and because the early evening was more often

devoted to family times, like having a meal together. Internet traffic rose after

10.00pm. Prior to that, sessions on-line were shorter (Lelong and Beaudouin, 20013).

That particular research went on to examine experiments using terminals other than

the PC for accessing the Internet. As regards using a set top box to access web-TV,

the television watchers in the household would usually impose their timetable on

when the TV set was used for viewing broadcast programmes and when it could be

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used for accessing the Internet. Meanwhile, webphones were only used for the

Internet after 10.00 pm, when ordinary voice phone calls were no longer made.

The influence of time, and timing, on ICT consumption can be further

exemplified from the results of a British qualitative study of managers and

professionals attitudes to and use of cable TV4. Whatever the amount of actual level

of interest the particular household members had in television, work commitments,

children and lifestyle choices meant that the majority of the interviewees often had at

best only a few hours to watch TV during the weekdays and at weekends. Many of the

men, especially, worked long hours at their place of work. After coming home they

expected to spend some time with their families. So parents from this social class

would often not have the chance to begin viewing until 8.00 pm or later - and then

some of these would be going to bed by 10.00 pm or 11.00 pm. It is therefore

understandable that many argued cable was not justified because they did not have

time to watch much TV, or enough TV.

Staying with this example, it is also worth considering one of the selling points

of cable – the number of films it offered. In that time slot noted above, these managers

and professionals could in theory have fitted in watching a film. However, many of

this group also liked to watch the evening news as a priority, either (at this period in

the mid-1990s) at 9.00 pm or at 10.00 pm. This in turn meant that the other TV

programmes they watched (including ones they videoed) were of shorter duration than

a film and they were viewed either side of news. In other words, the timing of their

commitment to the news, and wanting to see it live, blocked the option to watch a

film.

One last example of the constraints on the timing of ICT use relates to social

expectations about communication. There are the social codes as regards replying to

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e-mails and text messages. As was observed above, the technological promise is that

one can reply when it is convenient, offering temporal flexibility. However, in

practice there are often social pressures to reply sooner rather than later, as observed

by participants in the European P-903 study. This is captured in comments such as ‘I

feel obliged to communicate’ and ‘The sender often expects a fast reply’ (Klamer et

al, 2000). And we saw earlier in the chapter on children and youth how they

sometimes felt under pressure to respond quickly to the gift of a communication.

In fact, this pressure can actually lead to a sense of losing control, and even a

counter-reaction, as was described by a female participant in a British qualitative

study (Haddon, 2000c):

I’d say that 40% of the e-mail I get at work is social, I also get an incredible

deluge of work-related stuff. Now my social e-mail is just out of control, over

the last two years there’s just been more and more of it, its so tedious …my e-

mail circle has increased and they’re getting more frequent…it’s quite

outrageous and takes up far too much of my time, it’s becoming quite

annoying, I used to reply straight away, now I leave it for weeks on end

without replying because I just can’t be bothered with it any more.

One might ask more about the factors that put pressure on people to reply, the

expected time scales of replies and how people respond to these pressures in practice.

This last example also draws attention to the way in which the practices of textual

messaging might change over time as people engaged in this type of communication

decide to respond differently.

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Blocks of time vs. Fragmented time

One further question concerns whether people can find blocks of time for using ICTs,

and how large those blocks are, versus the degree to which the time for ICT use is

fragmented. This issue has been discussed in relation to gender, where women, who

still have more responsibility for domestic labour, experience relatively more

fragmented television viewing then men. They often fit viewing in between other

activities. But the picture is made more complicated by other factors. In a qualitative

study of teleworking, both male and female professionals, for whom work was a

career and a priority, organised work into blocks. This was because they needed

protracted periods of concentration in order to carry out their tasks, and it was

reflected in the timing of their use of ICTs such as the computer. Meanwhile, clerical

telework was predominantly undertaken by women who were trying to earn some

extra money for the household while being at home. Work, and hence the use of ICTs,

was temporally more fragmented as these teleworkers alternated between small tasks

(e.g. printing off) and domestic chores (Haddon and Silverstone, 1993).

This issue of the duration of time slots allotted to ICT use can be important for a

number of reasons. In a French study of experiments involving ADSL, the researchers

argued that its flat-rate tariff was actually one crucial factor leading people to devote

longer blocks of time to the Internet. They did not worry about the costs associated

with pay-per-use. The authors thought that this contributed to more sophisticated

usage5 and that spending longer blocks of time on-line facilitated learning. In fact, in

comparison to narrowband access, more people in these households learnt to use the

Internet, in addition to the main expert6 (Lelong and Beaudouin, 2001). We might

speculate as to whether having blocks of time for ICT use also allows for more

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experimentation and a greater chance of achieving success (e.g. in terms of finding

what one wants on the Net).

How attentive are people when experiencing fragmented time? The

phenomenon of multitasking – doing several things simultaneously – would be a

relevant example worthy of further investigation. The fact that many women multitask

of women because of their degree of involvement in domestic labour has been

discussed in various studies. But more generally, the increasing saturation of

households with ICTs has led to many people consuming several technologies at

once. We might think of the examples of listening to music or TV while being on-

line, or children switching between doing homework on a PC and instant messaging

with friends. To take one slightly older example from television, we might consider

the practice of zapping between programmes using the remote control and keeping

track of several narratives simultaneously. To what extent have we trained our

attention to cope with such practices?

Perceptions of time

There has been some research looking at perceptions of time and ICTs. For example,

people’s ‘orientation’ to time (past, present and future orientations) can have a

bearing upon ICT consumption (Silverstone, 1993). And the television schedule can

be used to mark, or give a sense of structure to, the passing of time (Scannel, 1988).

But one theme from the time literature has only been occasionally linked to

ICTs, and that is perceptions of time stress or the sense of time pressure7 that people

sometimes mention (Klamer et al, 2001). In this section we stand back from

technologies for a moment to think more generally about how this time stress has

been conceptualised and explained as well as to reflect upon factors shaping

perceptions of the quality of time. One can at least ask whether such perceived

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pressure has a bearing upon the perceptions and roles of ICTs. For example, under

what circumstances and for whom can ICTs help to alleviate a perceived time stress

problem? Or when are they seen as contributing to that problem, leading to more

pressure?

Time stress

Time stress is a theme in the wider literature on time, also expressed as ‘time famine’,

‘the time squeeze’ or the ‘harried leisure class’ (Southerton, 2001). An apparent

paradox commented upon in some of the time literature is that while time budget data

has demonstrated that those in employment have gained slightly more leisure time (or

rather ‘non-work time’), surveys show that people actually feel more time pressure.

There has been a range of explanations for the widespread experience of

harriedness (reviewed in Southerton, 2001). Some of these make reference to

objective changes in society. While claims that we work longer are empirically not

true, other changes in our time structures provide more plausible explanations for this

sense of being harried. One of these is the weakening of socio-temporal structures as

more work takes place at different times, as we can shop at different times, etc. While

this provides more individual flexibility on the one hand, it can also increase (time)

problems associated with co-ordinating with our social networks (this theme is

followed up below - Southerton, 2001).

Then there are a range of explanations referring to people’s changing time

strategies, themselves based on new expectations. For example, one account referred

to the amount of things people now tried to achieve. In a German study, three-quarters

of those surveyed said that they experienced time pressure precisely because they

were trying to do too much in their leisure time (Garhammer, 1998b). Another

changing strategy involved the speeding up of life as people did things more quickly

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in order to fit everything in. Hence, leisure activities become less ‘leisurely’ (Roberts

(1976), discussed in Southerton, 2001). And in this respect, ICTs may themselves

contribute to this faster pace of life, as observed by this Italian interviewee in the

European P-903 study (Klamer et al, 2000) when he observed: ‘New technologies

allow you to do more activities but they make you frenetic and stressed.’

Apart from the sheer number of activities undertaken it has been argued that the

duration and frequency of these activities are changing. This leads to people feeling

time pressure because they use their time more intensely, perhaps doing several things

at once, or because the large number of separate activities leads to a succession of

short, frequently changing episodes of activity (Bittman, 1998). Multi-tasking has also

been cited as a cause of stress. Or if not actually doing several things at once, then at

least ‘juggling’ activities has also been mentioned in this respect.

The quality of time

Two arguments about the perception of being harried introduce ways of thinking

about the quality of time. The first comes from a UK qualitative study. This argues

that although people referred to the idea of time stress when asked to comment on

their own everyday life, in practice their days were not stressed overall (Southerton,

2001). But what emerged was the fact that there were particular periods when they

felt harried because they had packed many activities into a short time frame: which

the researcher called ‘hot spots’

This compression of activities can be caused by the pressure to fit in with the

time structures of institutions, as in the case of the rush to get children ready for

school in the morning. Hot spots can arise from the problem of co-ordinating with

social networks, occurring when there are small windows of time in which to make

contact. They can arise due to the unpredictability of events which mess up plans. But

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hot spots can also arise because of the desire to fulfil a different time strategy: to

create ‘cold spots’. The examples of cold spots provided by the study’s participants

were characterised in terms such as ‘quality time’, ‘potter time’, ‘chill time’ and

‘bonding time’. In other words, because people wanted to create times which had a

special quality, ones which were not under pressure, they allocated their daily

practices unevenly, dashing around (during hot spots) to get the task out of the way in

order to create periods of calm.

The second, Australian, study started out with the literature suggesting that

women felt more harried than men (Bittman and Wajcman, 2000). However, many of

the studies cited to support this claim were qualitative in nature and so the authors

wanted to check these arguments using time budget data. Overall, there was not much

of a gender difference in terms of aggregate leisure8.

But the researchers argued that leisure unaccompanied by a second activity (i.e.

with no distractions) was of a different quality from leisure constrained or

‘contaminated’ by such secondary activities (such as having to monitor children, or

modify leisure preferences to fit in with children). Males were far more likely to

experience the first, which the researchers called ‘pure leisure’. This was shown when

the data for primary and secondary activities were combined. Women were more

likely to experience their leisure combined with unpaid work.

Second, the researchers looked at the average maximum duration of episodes of

pure leisure. This was longer for males. The average number of pure leisure episodes,

was greater for females, meaning that female’s leisure experience was more

fragmented into periods of shorter duration. Arguably, this was less relaxing than

unbroken leisure.

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 Finally, the researchers developed the concept of ‘adult leisure’, defined as time

spent in pure leisure or ‘intense leisure’ (primary and secondary activities both

counting as leisure) without the presence of children. If children were present, this

time would be designated ‘family leisure’. The gender differences were most notable

when the children were very young. Mothers’ leisure was mostly family leisure, while

fathers had at least some more time for adult leisure.

The various approaches used in this study attempted to demonstrate,

statistically, that the quality of leisure time was different for males and females. Iin

conjunction with arguments from qualitative studies, this helped to explain the greater

female perception of being harried.

Given the lack of available evidence, it has only been possible in this section to

illustrate some of the ways in which the issue of time perceptions has been

approached and in particular to think about the quality of different times for different

people. It remains an, as yet, unanswered question as to how that subjective

perception may have a bearing upon how we experience ICTs. Do these technologies

become associated with times perceived as stressful, or with the high quality times

described in the two different studies above? And how should we assess ICTs in the

light of such perceptions (e.g. as time-saving/shifting and hence stress relieving; as

helping to create hot or cold spots; as contributing to that stress, as when we make

ourselves more reachable by others).

Planning and managing time

Although in the last section we saw some examples of the way people manage time

(e.g. creating hot and cold spots), compared to the amount of data on time use there is

actually very limited research on the detailed practices of time planning and on the

different temporal strategies open to us (Chatto, 2001). Research of this kind would

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need to cover practical questions such as how people adjust their schedules, re-

negotiating plans in the face of contingencies. For example, if something overruns do

people dispense with the end of the activity, do they move the whole time plan for the

day? And it would need to cover how people adapt time plans to each other (e.g.

comparing time schedules, by trial and error), how much they are aware of other

people's time plans and how much time they spend communicating about these plans.

As reported in the chapter on children and youth, German research from the late

1980s discussed the changing experience of childhood this century (Büchner, 19909).

It traced the decline of street culture, where interaction was to some extent

spontaneous with peers who happened to live nearby. We saw that more free time was

spent not only in the home but also at a distance from the home both in after-school

institutions and also with friends who lived at a distance. This German study made the

point that maintaining such social circles required more co-ordination and planning,

and children became more dependent on being transported by adults. In this context,

the telephone became more and more essential not only to arrange meetings, which

could be partly done at school, but also to confirm them after negotiations with adults.

Children, it was argued, were experiencing a more intense time economy, often

having to say they had ’no time’ and finding themselves under more pressure to ‘save

time’. This process became part of their socialisation into later adult roles. The

children learnt to manage their time economy, schedule activities, make appointments

and make commitments to others. It also implied that the timing of meetings required

more advanced planning and was less spontaneous (e.g. compared to simply going to

somebody’s house who lives locally).

Subsequently, research on the mobile phone has suggested that this technology

can produce the opposite effect, creating more spontaneity. French research described

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the shift in appointment-making practices as people could now call someone if they

happened to be nearby in order to see if they could meet up (Licoppe and Heurtin,

2001). Meanwhile, Norwegian research discussed the way people used the mobile

phone to make arrangements to meet after they have already arrived at a destination

such as a pub, restaurant or other site. They improvised a meeting rather than planning

one in advance. The research observed this behaviour was especially developed

among teenagers, as well as the practice of only vaguely specifying where to meet at

first but then progressively firming this up through subsequent calls (Ling and Yttri,

2002). A slightly different take on a similar process came from a Japanese study

noting similar mobile phone communication in the build up to a meeting and then

further communications by mobile between youth immediately after the meeting (Ito

and Daisuke, 2003). This made the meeting even more ‘fluid’.

Thus, in contrast to the fixed phone research described above, such uses of the

mobile phone (as well as phoning ahead to warn that one is late and rescheduling

when underway) imply the need for less planning in advance. They suggest more

spontaneity or flexibility in organising meetings and travelling to them. Indeed, the

teens in the Norwegian study explicitly acknowledged this ability to organise

meetings at the last moment. So has this lead to new ‘just-in-time’ forms of

socialising (to borrow a term from the field of production)?

To answer this, it is worth considering a point made earlier about the problems

of synchronising time with others, including other family members (especially as

people’s individual time schedules become more varied). This was captured in one of

the European P-903 focus groups by this Danish male participant: ‘When we were

younger, we visited each other spontaneously. We don’t do that any more. Now we

call in beforehand and make appointments’. Another French male participant

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complained about the constraints of family life: ‘With a child…we need to plan

everything. We cannot go out anymore. With the new means of communication, we

may organise things better but we feel like we are in a restraint’.

The point is that the greater possibility for instant communication does not

necessarily lead us to change the way we plan and manage time. It is more difficult to

do so at short notice, more spontaneously, if we are locked into some of the time

structures that have been discussed at several points in this chapter. Clearly the

Norwegian youth referred to earlier would seem to have had a fair amount of

flexibility in this respect - but not everyone does.

Conclusions

The issue of disposable time is important because to the extent that we reserve time

for other activities this in turn limits or shapes the consumption of ICTs. In fact,

sometimes the anticipated time costs of ICT use is enough to shape decisions and

people even give up use because of time costs. While examples of this have emerged

anecdotally and in qualitative research, such considerations appear not to have been

examined more systematically – providing scope for investigating whether time costs

is an issue for some groups more than others.

On closer inspection, we need to look not just at the amounts of disposable time

available to use ICTs, but also at issues concerning the timing of that use and the time

structures of people’s lives. In fact, despite the promise of some ICTs to allow us

flexibility by time-shifting, this is only partially realised because of the constraints of

our time structures. Hence, one general research question concerns the degree to

which the time structures discussed above are flexible or inflexible. In other words,

under what circumstances, for whom, and in relation to what type of (social)

constraint are people freer to change the time order of their daily lives? If we consider

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the theme of blocks of time for ICT use or whether that use is fitted into more

fragmented time structures, we might go on to ask about people’s freedom to

determine the duration of time slots devoted to ICTs. And to what extent does to

being able to organize blocks of time have any beneficial effects.

Subjective perceptions of time have received some attention in the sub-literature

on time, especially in the debates about the causes of time stress. Two lines of

analyses were picked out in this chapter because they provided a way to think about

the ‘quality’ of time. Arguably research into this subjective dimension is worth

pursuing since people’s evaluation of their time, and their evaluation of how ICTs are

affecting it, may well influence their adoption and use of these technologies.

There appears to be an even more limited amount of research on the actual way

we plan time use more generally, about the mechanics of planning and about time

strategies. More information about this would be needed in order to appreciate

whether various ICTs fit in with, assist or are at odds with the way people actually go

about organising their time. While we can pose the general question asking how much

ICTs have had an impact on such planning processes, we can ask a more specific one

about whether they are providing more or less scope for spontaneity of action.

Endnotes

1. This was a middle-class sample since at the time of the study in 1998 they were the

predominant users of the Internet.

2. The French analysts examined communications traffic from France Telecoms’ data,

the survey material and in-depth interviews from a variety of projects from a

programme of research on communication and life cycles (see chapter eight).

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3. This article represented a synthesis of the results from four years of French

experiments on access to the Internet.

4. This study consisted of in-depth interviews with twenty households, half with and

half without cable TV. It was conducted in 1995-6 for the cable company Telewest

(Silverstone and Haddon, 1996a). The households were from social class AB.

5. Other factors influencing experimentation included the rapid response through

using high-speed access.

6. More women and more elderly used ADSL compared to narrowband.

7. There are national variations in perceptions, reflecting perhaps not just different

objective circumstances, but also different expectations. For example, in surveys

asking working people if they felt rushed, 25% said yes in Germany compared to 11%

in Spain (Garhammer, 1998b). Second, even within countries, there is variation.

Certainly those involved in what has been called more ‘passive’ leisure activities (e.g.

TV watching) have not necessarily felt pressured nor, surveys suggest, have young

workers spending time in pubs, cinemas etc., whose social life involved a large

amount of social communication (Garhammer, 1998b). Third, being busy does not

necessarily mean feeling stressed. Even sections of the population who experience a

crowded timetable might agree that they are, or outsiders might define them as being,

busy - but they need not experience this as pressure. For example, some find that

being busy is stimulating. In the European P-903 focus group study, those participants

who had both mobile phones and Internet access were more inclined to talk about the

huge number of different activities which made them live an active and rather hectic

life, including in their leisure time. But these people often liked to be busy, they did

not feel stressed but saw being busy in a very positive way (Klamer et al, 2000).

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Others also have commented on the fact that that being busy can be symbolic of a

‘full’ and ‘valued’ life (Darrier (1998), cited in Southerton, 2001).

8. The researchers used multinational data for the overall figures and Australian data

for the more detailed analysis of combined activities.

9. This chapter was based on a literature review, combined with data from a youth

survey.

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Chapter seven: Movement, public spaces and ICTs

Our relationship to space, like time, has a bearing on how we use and experience

ICTs. While the issues around locating ICTs in domestic space and the implications of

this will be covered in chapter nine, in this chapter we will examine two other spatial

relationships. The first, admittedly less rooted in the traditional interests of the

domestication framework, concerns ICTs and movement through space, i.e. how ICTs

relate to various forms of travel behaviour. The second deals with how ICTs are

experienced in public spaces1.

Starting with travel, it has been pointed out elsewhere that mobility has been a

relatively under-researched topic within the social sciences, or only seen as a black

box where the nature of and social motivations for travel have received little attention

(Urry, 20002). In certain respects, this is also true of travel and ICTs. Therefore, in

comparison to the other chapters, this chapter cites less evidence but poses more

research questions.

The chapter starts by drawing upon historical studies that suggest ways in which

wider social changes may have set the pre-conditions for the reception of ICTs. Could

changing travel patterns be one such social change? In particular, how might changes

in the travel patterns of particular groups such as children and women have a bearing

upon their ICT acquisition and use? And why is it important to disaggregate travel

behaviour into different types of mobility?

We can also ask about the opposite causal relations. How do ICTs affect

patterns of travel? For example, do new ICTs that facilitate teleworking or enable e-

commerce have implications for mobility? If, as discussed in the previous chapter,

new patterns of interpersonal communication made possible by mobile phones have

changed our patterns of meeting, what implications has this for patterns of

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movement? How do ICTs themselves influence the very organization and

management of travel? Specifically, how are newer ICTs such as the mobile phone

and e-mail making a difference in this respect? What of the new travel information

services becoming available – what research questions would we want to ask of their

take up and influence on travel experiences?

Apart from influencing the motivations for and logistics of travel, ICTs can

have a bearing upon the very experience of mobility. For instance, in what ways do

ICTs enable us to manage our affairs remotely, when away from the home? How do

they affect how we make use of travel time? How do they alter what it means to be

abroad, as well as what it means to be away from home? And how do they influence

how we feel about travelling?

To set the scene for the second main topic area of this chapter, ‘public’ and

‘private’ are constructed notions referring to different things in different contexts. One

common approach has been to refer to the public world of work and the private world

of the home. However, some analysts have wondered whether the two notions are

themselves changing, partly aided by new ICTs like the mobile phone. For example,

what counts as public and private communications may depend less on the particular

place and more on the form and purpose of communication (Cooper at al, 2001).

This part of the chapter focuses mainly on expectations of and behaviour related

to mobile phone use in different social spaces outside the home. It takes up the

traditional interests of domestication research concerning how people manage their

relationships with others through and around ICTs. But it looks outside the home to

ask what strategies people have develop for managing their mobile phones in public

spaces and how they interact with the other people who are present.

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The effects of mobility on ICT use

Changes in mobility can set the pre-conditions for the reception of new

technologies3. Raymond Williams once argued this in relation to the spread of certain

ICTs in the UK at the start of the twentieth century. He maintained that the spread of

photography, gramophones and cinema as well as the growth in popularity of media

such as newspapers reflected the greater geographical (or residential) mobility that

was occurring at that time as people moved to live and work in different locations

(Williams, 1974). This led them to take more of an interest in these ‘new’ ICTs (as

they were then) that preserved memories and helped those who had moved to keep in

touch with what was happening in their birthplaces. In other words, he argued,

changing social experiences made the time period especially favourable for these new

innovations. The same type of argument could be suggested here4. In this case, we

might speculate (as did Townsend, 2001) that growing mobility in everyday life has

helped to create the positive reception given to a range of ICTs, including both mobile

phones and aspects of the Internet. It has done so through giving rise to more

occasions when such ICTs could be perceived as being very useful.

If we move beyond general mobility in society, we can ask how current patterns

of mobility among different social groups might affect ICT use. For example, in

chapter three we saw that that children’s patterns of mobility are complex and

involved parents ferrying their children to various venues. So one question is whether

the issues of logistics that this necessitates has contributed to parents acquiring mobile

phones for their children (as well as for themselves)5.

To take another example, we have the relation between mobility and gender. To

a degree, previous constraints on women’s travel have been reduced as women’s

greater entry into the labour market has increased pressure for second cars or for

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shared use of cars (Salomon et al, 1993). Since statistics have consistently shown that

women were more likely to say that they acquired the mobile phone for emergencies6

– including the car breaking down – there is the question of whether this mobility

trend contributed to the take up of the mobile by women. There are other issues

arising from the particular nature of that women’s mobility and its implications for

ICTs. For example, research has also observed that women often combine more trips

through a number of different spaces when travelling compared to men (Turner and

Grieco, 2000). Do the logistics involved have any bearing on the adoption, use and

usefulness of mobile phones?

Another way of focusing research is to disaggregate different forms of mobility.

The frequency and duration of different types of travel vary, as does their regularity in

terms of occurring more or less routinely or spontaneously. Both in its planning and

execution, travel takes place with different degrees of difficulty. Trips may be

motivated by a variety of social obligations and commitments. The extent to which

they occur through an individual’s (perceived) ‘free choice’ also varies. And travel

entails different levels of pleasure and stress. In other words, rather than talking just

about movement or mobility in general, it is also important to disaggregate the various

forms of travel if we are to appreciate their importance and meaning and hence,

potentially, the different roles that ICTs may have in relation to these travel

experiences. Two examples - commuting and travel abroad - are provided to illustrate

such differences and to show what research questions could be asked about how they

may influence ICT use.

In one sense commuting is not such a large part of the total amount we travel –

it constitutes about 20-25 % of total mobility (Jansen, 1993). But it is strategic in a

number of senses. It is the main form of mobility around which other travel is fitted,

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thus determining the timing of these other trips. Commuting has increased due to the

greater participation of women in the labour force. Meanwhile, the distances

commuted have grown across Europe in the last twenty years reflecting the process by

which populations and jobs have become increasingly decentralized (Jansen, 1993).

There appears to be a limited amount of research, at least in the public domain,

about the effects of commuting on ICT use. But we can at least pose some questions

to explore how this particular form of travel may have a bearing upon interest in these

technologies. Partly anticipating a theme discussed below, in what ways and for

whom have commuting problems meant that transport information systems or traffic

news (delivered by various means) have become tools for aiding commuting

decisions? Where there is uncertainty about how long commuting will take and if

such travel is strategic in terms of fitting in with other journeys, what bearing has this

had upon the use of mobile communication – voice telephony or otherwise – as a tool

for co-ordinating with others? And, to ask a question pertinent for telecommuting, for

whom and to what extent do problems specifically related to commuting influence

decisions to use ICTs to spend at least some time working from home?

Turning to the case of travel abroad, the number of trips abroad made in 1989

was five times more than in the mid-1960s. International travel has filtered down

through all the different socio-economic levels of the population (Potier et al, 1993).

Travelling abroad may not be, literally, ‘every day’ mobility for most people. But the

P-903 study showed that it was much appreciated, apart from becoming easier

(Klamer et al, 2000).

From various qualitative studies we see examples where people who are abroad

use not only fixed telephony but also fax machines and e-mail (including from

Internet cafés7) as well as mobile phones to keep in touch with their children and

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parents back home. But one could imagine research exploring more systematically the

communications practices of people when they are abroad. This could include asking

more generally how people use portable ICTs when they are abroad - ICTs ranging

from more work-related laptops to more leisure orientated devices such as music-

playing equipment, portable interactive games and audio-visual devices. For example,

to what extent do people take such ICTs with them and use them when they are

abroad or use them when abroad in order to bring some of their familiar world with

them?

ICTs affecting patterns of travel

This topic has taken on an added salience in the light of ever greater concerns about

the environmental unsustainability of current levels of mobility, or what has been

termed ‘hypermobility’ (Adams, 2000). The question asked from this perspective is

whether the use of ICTs in various respects could reduce the need to travel. The

complication is that ‘green’ concerns are not the only consideration. Indeed, some

have asked whether high degrees of mobility form part of our fundamental experience

of modernity (Sørensen, 1999).

Turning to specific ways in which to reduce mobility, the topic of telework

started to gain publicity in academic circles in the early 1970s when the energy crisis

led US researchers to consider ‘telecommuting’ as an alternative to physically

commuting (Nilles et al, 1976). The environmental agenda has continued to foster the

particular interest in whether ICTs used for work purposes could reduce some need

for travel (e.g. Gillespie et al, 1995; Anderson, 2001), even if there could be other

motivations for teleworking or for allowing teleworking8.

One factor to bear in mind is that telework is difficult to measure because of

different researchers’ definitions of the phenomenon, its invisibility and, for many, its

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unofficial and casual nature. If we count those who work mainly from home the

number is relatively small (Garies, 2002), not the huge percentage of the workforce

predicted by some enthusiasts. On the other hand, if we consider more occasional

telework, such as one day a week of less, the numbers go up. While the implications

for travel is obviously less than full-time teleworking, there may be still some effect.

Perhaps the tricky question concerns the role of ICTs in causing any such

telework to happen. Policy documents and research papers mention the potential role

of technology drivers, most recently the Internet (e.g. Gareis, 2002). However, there is

the question of how influential the technological developments are compared to other

factors. Research from the 1990s before the widespread adoption of the Internet

suggested that at best the influence of ICTs on the decision to telework was mixed

(Haddon and Silverstone, 1994). Some people worked at home anyway, and the

arrival of newer ICTs simply made their life easier. At the other extreme, but more

rarely, new ICTs enabled telework that could not have taken place before. In fact, the

findings of much of the research into people’s and firms’ motivations for taking an

interest in teleworking indicate a lesser role for technology. While it may offer the

potential to work at home, it is the managerial, economic and social considerations

that are usually more important in shaping actual decisions. These include the

willingness of companies and other employers to allow teleworking and the choice

made by workers to take up this option.

The development of home-based on-line transactions such as home shopping

and telebanking offers another potential way to reduce the need for travel. However,

the five-country qualitative study of the Internet showed that even when people used

services such as on-line shopping facilities some of them also combined this with

physical shopping (Haddon, 1998c). For example, they sometimes checked prices on

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line and then bought the item from a shop. Or they went to a shop to see a product

before buying it at a cheaper price on-line. This in part reflected a preference that

many people have for physically seeing a good before purchase. This is also the

reason why some people resisted remote purchasing altogether. Some shoppers, in

relation to some goods, take pleasure in physically shopping. And people still liked to

get out of the house at times.

On the other hand, that same qualitative research suggested that for some

people, especially at busy times, the option of remote purchasing could be attractive

and useful. In addition, routine purchases, purchases of some immaterial services and

purchases where the physical nature of the good was less important (e.g. CDs) could

be handled remotely with less concern. One common worry in this 1998 study was the

perceived lack of security on the Internet as regards credit card transactions. In fact,

many interviewees had encountered media stories of Internet fraud, and so, even if

they knew that fraud using only the basic telephone was possible, they thought that

there were more problems with the Internet. However, if we take the payment element

out, a number were willing to look for products on-line. Meanwhile, telebanking was

enjoying some success.

So the picture is mixed. These new services are useful for some purposes, but

they do not automatically replace all existing consumption practices. Moreover, much

of the research on e-commerce has not been directly interested in the implications for

mobility. In fact, one concern that is sometimes raised about practices such as home

shopping is that any large-scale growth of these remote interactions might mean that

people will become more home-centred and lose a certain amount of social contact

(Klamer et al, 2000). In other words, the fear is that we become too immobile.

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 Finally, there is the question of the effect of ICTs on travel for the purpose of

making social contact. We saw in the chapter on social networks that contact via the

Internet can lead to particular cases of travel to meet people that might otherwise not

have taken place. It is unlikely that this is really going to make much difference to

people’s overall mobility. As regards the mobile phone, in the chapter on time we saw

instances when people were out of the home and they used the mobile phone to ask

someone else to join them, perhaps leading to a journey which otherwise might not

have taken place. But as in the case of Internet-based transactions, one might

speculate that this has a relatively minor impact on mobility in general.

In sum, any evidence we have about whether ICTs themselves lead to less travel

or more travel is often only glimpsed, often arising anecdotally, in studies with other

agendas. Or else it is seen in exploratory studies9. But even lacking the quantitative

and systematic evidence to explore some of the mechanisms outlined here, it is clear

that there are grounds for doubts about the extent to which new ICTs, or rather the

practices related to them, have had a substantial effect on travel.

ICTs, the organization of travel and management of daily life

In chapter three on children and youth we saw the German study that showed the

increasing use of the fixed phone by children for arranging meetings with peers

(Büchner, 1990). A more recent French ethnography documents the equivalent usage

among young adult friends (Manceron, 1997). Qualitative studies indicate this process

continuing with the newer ICTs (Haddon 1999a; Klamer et al 2000; Haddon, 2000c).

We find, for example, e-mail being used in the longer term planning of meetings such

as family re-unions or parties, its advantage in comparison to voice telephony being

its ability to broadcast details and even maps to several people at once.

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 While Internet based e-mail can be used for planning more short notice events

such as meeting up after work, delays in the arrival of messages and lost e-mails have

been acknowledged as being a problem (Haddon, 2000c). It is in this respect, the

mobile phone has an advantage10. For example, talking about mobile voice telephony

this British interviewee observed: ‘It’s really useful to check up where people are on

Saturday nights and they know they can get hold of me…’ (cited in Haddon, 2000c).

Making similar comments about text messaging and youth, this seventeen-year-old

Norwegian interviewee commented: ‘On Friday there are a lot more text messages

than on Thursday because people are out and need to find out what is going on’ (cited

in Ling and Yttri, 2002). Qualitative studies have also shown instances of using the

mobile phone to confirm meetings (in order to avoid wasting time if there has been a

change of plan). They have been used to help overcome problems of locating people

one is supposed to meet up with in public spaces (i.e. phoning to ask where they are).

And, frequently cited, they have been used to warn of delays and the need to

reschedule.

Mobile telephony and texting not only help people to organize meetings but

they also facilitate people’s ability to manage the logistics of everyday life. In their

concept of ‘micro-coordination’, the authors of a Norwegian study included calls to

arrange for children to be picked up and dropped of as well as calls contacting people

when they are underway in order to arrange for them to take on some other activity,

such as going to the shops (Ling and Yttri, 2002; Ling, 2004).

Apart from such interpersonal communication, the information provided by

ICTs can itself a bearing upon patterns of mobility. For example, we might consider

the role of the Internet in the initial stages of planning a journey (e.g. checking routes,

travel options) organising the relevant transactions (i.e. buying tickets) and checking

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relevant travel information at the last minute to see if there are problems (e.g. road

traffic congestion, rail delays, flight delays). For some time it has been possible to

plan journeys and check for problems using teletext (at least in some countries such as

the UK) as well as monitor certain travel conditions by radio (e.g. traffic congestion

problems). The Internet has since provided yet another means for managing our

travel, as have the car radios which actively search for traffic information, the mobile

phone services for cars supplying information on traffic conditions nearby, the

computer software for route planning and the public transport touch-screen

information services.

One can also imagine research questions about who chooses to use the facilities

in the list above, in what circumstances and for what forms of travel. Equally, why

and by whom are they not used? But maybe it is more appropriate to think of people

having a repertoire of information sources just as they have a repertoire of

communications options. People already draw upon various sources of information in

planning travel, including word-of-mouth advice, anecdotes told be others and

personal experiences. Hence, the better questions to ask might be: when do people

take on new sources and how do they fit them into the set of existing travel

information resources open to them? Turning to the consequences of ICTs, do such

information services make the planning of travel more or less time-consuming,

involve more or less effort, more or less stress, or lead to the development of more

skills in planning? And do they save time actually spent travelling (on occasions when

those time-savings are desired)?

Finally, mobile phones have influenced not only the organisation of logistics but

also our ability to manage our private affairs when away from home. One of the

earliest US studies of the mobile phone introduced the concept of ‘remote mothering’.

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This referred to women carrying mobile phones in order to be available to children

when needed, to be able to continue ‘mothering work’ even when they were not

physically present (Rakow and Navaro, 1993). The theme of mobiles making us more

available has been raised by participants in subsequent studies, as when they observed

that their mobility was no longer constrained by having to stay at the home base to

wait for messages (Mante-Maier et al, 2001, Palen et al, 2001)

ICTs’ Influence upon the experience of travel

11
We now explore the experiential dimension through a number of different worked

examples. The first is travel in terms of spending time abroad. Credit cards

increasingly allow people abroad to draw money from ATMs (banking machines)

without having to deal with banks or bureaux de change when they need to change

money. The growth of mobile phones means that there is no need to use, and learn

how to use, the telephone systems of the country one is visiting. Developments such

as automated kiosks that provide tourist information with multi-language options

allow us to discover things in our own languages. And the availability of local

information on the Internet provides those (going) abroad with a new way to find out

about their surroundings. These examples illustrate the point that one is using a

familiar interface, there is less need to know the language of the country, less need to

know the particularities of how things work there, less need to work out how to find

things out – i.e. to discover the social system. It may be more convenient, but without

being nostalgic we can simply observe that such developments change the very

experience of being abroad

Being abroad, be that on holiday, for business purposes or as part of a longer

visit (e.g. for study purposes), not only means coping in a different environment. It

also used to mean being taking a break from the daily interactions, commitments and

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routines associated with being at one’s main home. However, ICTs make it

increasingly easier to maintain those links, to be in contact, to know what is going on

back home and to be reachable. Consider how satellite provides access to more

foreign TV, which means some travellers can watch their own national TV when

abroad. Meanwhile, mobile phones and the Internet cafés allow us to stay in touch. In

some respects such developments have enabled those who travel or spend a longer

time abroad to perhaps have some peace of mind and continue to manage their lives

and relationships with others when they are away. The other side of the coin is that

such options potentially change the experience of having a break12.

The second worked example involves the use of travel time. Qualitative

research has indicated that some people find it to be quite useful to be able to utilise

mobile phones to exploit travel time, to fit in those calls that it is more difficult to

make at other times. If travel time is perceived as ‘dead time’, or a boring time, then

people welcome the chance to be able to do more with it, either using voice telephony

or sending text messages (Klamer et al, 2000). Presumably the same is true of other

portable ICTs.

However, it would be misleading to think that all travel time, even commuting,

is experienced in this way. For example, one study by the French Ministry of

Transport showed that for some people the time spent commuting was their only free

time to reflect. And they were concerned to keep this time13. In the later P-903 study,

some participants used travel time for reading books, newspapers, or planning daily

activities (Klamer et al, 2000). Commuting could also be useful for allowing a mental

transition between home and work or for simply relaxing. In other words, the

subjective experience of travel time and how we want to use it is diverse. The

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implication is that we should consider more carefully what activities and experiences

the use of ICTs potentially displaces.

The third example involves feelings of security when travelling. One of the

clearest instances of this, cited in various research, is the greater sense of safety

provided by mobile phones. This is often mentioned in relation to driving, and is

perhaps more acute for some groups than others – e.g. the Swedish Handicapped

Research Centre found that disabled people felt safer with mobile phones when

driving alone. In an early survey women certainly indicated that they felt safer when

driving because of the mobile (Rakow and Navaro, 1993)14.

But driving is not the only example. Having the mobile phone available can

provide a general sense of security and assurance, a degree of peace of mind knowing

one has more options to respond, as well as reassuring others, such as parents (Ling,

2004). The same point could be made not only for actual travelling, but for being

especially in isolated places, such as the Norwegian second home in the country or

Hytte, often located in remote places ‘near to nature’ (Ling et al, 1997). Not only

having the phone but talking while passing though public spaces and even making

sure one is seen using a mobile in public can provides a sense of security. Whether it

does lead to more actual security might be open to debate (Ling, 2004).

Finally, we have a very different type of subjective experience of mobility in

terms of comforts and pleasures. Entertainment-related ICTs in particular would be

relevant here, if one considers the rise of in-car entertainment, for example. And one

British study of the Walkman explored the various ways in which personal stereo use

can be used to ‘re-spatialize experience’ (Bull, 2000). Using familiar sounds to

accompany them on urban journeys meant that people had a sense of never having left

home and they could ignore the environment through which they passed.

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ICTs in public spaces

Understandings about the degree to which physical (and always social) spaces are

deemed to be relatively more public or private are subject to on-going negotiation15.

So too are expectations about appropriate behaviour in such spaces. There may well

be some institutional definitions of the status of certain spaces and of (in)appropriate

behaviour in them and even regulation of those spaces (e.g. no smoking, no begging,

no playing music instruments, no using a mobile phone during performances). Yet

people still have to work to make those definitions stick, to make that governance of

space a reality. Moreover, those definitions and that regulation are sometimes resisted.

Or else new situations emerge, such as the arrival of new ICTs, which pose afresh

questions of appropriate behaviour and of the nature of different types of space.

To take an example of this last possibility, we can consider the arrival of one of

the first portable entertainment ICTs – the Walkman. Early reactions to its use in

public space by those co-present were particularly negative, as were those of some

social commentators. Analysts trying to make sense of this reaction drew on the

anthropological perspectives of Mary Douglas. They argued that this private listening

in public spaces was ‘out of place’ and thus transgressed boundaries (du Gay et al,

1997). The authors of this study added that with the proliferation of this particular

technology, the negative reaction to the Walkman diminished somewhat over time.

But similar reactions, partly for similar reasons, were later directed at the mobile

phone.

Arguably, the disruptive nature of new ICTs in public spaces has been even

better exemplified by the mobile. For example, in the mid-1990s when mobile

telephony was first developing as a mass market, the European Telsoc quantitative

research showed that sizeable minorities still had quite negative reactions to mobile

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use16. Even by 2001, qualitative and quantitative European research in the P-903

project was still showing perhaps a surprising degree of negative reaction, though

perhaps understandably more so amongst those without mobiles (Mante-Meijer et al,

2001).

While there have been some attempts to explain this reaction in terms of the

nature of mobile calls (e.g. the disruption of the ringing, hearing one side of a

conversation) several studies have referred to people’s expectations of communicative

behaviour in public spaces. For example, one argument has been that any code of

conduct that had emerged in relation to the fixed telephone was now disappearing

through the ‘chaotic and divergent’ use of the mobile phone (de Gournay, 2002).

In addition to such arguments about public space in general, we need also to

think about the particularities of different spaces. Certainly the European Telsoc

quantitative study found varying degrees of willingness to turn on mobile phones in

different types of space17 (Haddon, 1998a). In fact, in order to understand the

reactions of those co-present and the behaviour of users, various studies have

attempted to specify the more detailed meanings of particular social spaces, going

beyond the blanket concepts of public and private. For instance, we saw how one

Norwegian study looked at the Hytte, or holiday home, as a space for taking a break

from city life and for communing with nature (Ling et al, 1997). Admittedly, the

mobile phone sometimes played a role in enabling that break, by allowing people to

be contactable in emergencies or for work. Yet, it also presented a problem to be

managed by users. It threatened to disrupt the essential desire to make a break with

normal daily life. To cope with this, mobile users negotiated with potential callers and

family the conditions under which the mobile could and should be switched on or off.

However, such negotiations were not always easy. Other analysts have also observed

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that one can be called to account by others for not switching the mobile on (Cooper at

al, 2001).

Meanwhile another Norwegian study, this time of the restaurants18, explored the

very particular expectations people had about what was involved in going out for a

meal, constructing private spaces within a public setting that should not be disturbed

(Ling, 1997; Ling, 2004). The research documented the negative reactions and

subsequent actions of those co-present when a mobile call was taken in this setting.

As in the case of many authors researching this topic, this analysis drew upon the

vocabulary developed in Goffman’s work for describing ways in which everyday life

is like a theatrical performance.

Such studies remind us that although the focus has been on ‘space’ we really

need to be attentive to time-space, to the ‘situation’, to the ‘moment’ and to the social

activity that is taking place19. For example, it is not just the fact of being in restaurants

that may have a bearing on how we feel about and handle communication. Rather, it

is the act of going out for a meal with someone, reserving a time as well as a space for

them, with all the expectations and desires that this may imply.

Strategies for managing communication

The importance of the desire for privacy when making calls was emphasized in the

European Telsoc quantitative study when it looked at the prevalence of different

strategies for securing privacy when using the basic telephone20 (Haddon, 1998a).

This search for privacy re-emerged in two studies of public telephone kiosk use. The

first, a French study, observed that some people used kiosks because they had no

access to a fixed line at home. Other users did have such access but instead preferred

to use public phones because they wanted privacy from other household members

(e.g. younger people did this in order to escape parental surveillance) (Carmagnat,

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1995). A similar finding emerged in a second, Japanese, study of younger people who

used public phones because of the lack of privacy at home (especially because it was

very easy to hear phone conversations through the thin walls in Japanese homes21)

(cited in de Gournay, 1996). Both studies provided examples of a public space

providing (for the caller) more privacy than the home. This can also be true of mobile

phone use (Ling and Helmersen, 2000). In the European Telsoc study, 14% of the

whole sample said that they had used the mobile phone specifically because it

provided some privacy (Haddon, 1998a)22. However, in researching the use of the

work phone for private purposes one French study found that only certain types of

communication were felt to be appropriate in the work context – i.e. there were some

subjects that would not be discussed in such phone calls (de Gournay, 1997). It

remains to be seen how the nature and content of calls influence people’s willingness

to make such private calls in different types of public space.

Just as chapter four provided examples of people’s strategies for controlling

contact via the fixed line, so too there are strategies for controlling incoming mobile

communication. For example, apart from switching off their phones in different social

locations, qualitative studies have indicated how people turn the phone off when it

rings or let it ring. Both actions can direct calls to voicemail (Licoppe and Heurtin,

2001, 2002). We should add that in addition to wanting to control their overall

reachability, people sometimes want to avoid giving out the contextual details of

where they are, what they are doing and the presence of particular others.

The caller is not the only one the mobile user needs to manage. Various studies

have revealed the strategies that mobile users adopt for dealing with co-present others,

be they known or strangers. These include trying to be discrete when answering calls

and moving to a separate space (Bassett et al, 1997). If they want to demonstrate to

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others that they care that they might be infringing expectations, mobile users may

indicate that they are trying to deal with this by ‘speeding up’ the call to bring it to an

end more quickly (Licoppe and Heurtin, 2002).

Yet other analyses of the messages we give to bystanders draw upon Simmel’s

(1997) characterisation of the anonymous urban experience and how we try to cope

with what has been described as the ‘inflicted co-presence’ of other people. Portable

ICTs such as the Walkman (Bull, 2000), the laptop or palmtop, handheld games and

now the mobile can all be used to cut us off from those immediately around us. Using

a mobile, accompanied by signals that include avoiding the gaze of others and the use

of gestures and body movements, can tell other people about the user’s non-

availability and serve to create a private bubble within public space (Cooper, 2000;

Cooper et al, 2001).

Conclusions

Changing patterns of travel may have set the general pre-conditions for the reception

of ICTs. In addition, the examples of children and women’s mobility suggest that

there is some scope for exploring whether the mobility of different socio-demographic

groups have consequences for ICT adoption and use. However, it is important to

disaggregate the different types of mobility since the potential role of ICTs might vary

in relation to these different types of travel.

When we turn the question around to ask about effects of ICTs on mobility, the

issue can be approached at a number of levels. Many of these parallel the questions

asked about time in the previous chapter. One first consideration is how ICTs

influence the activities we take on, the way we link activities and hence the patterns of

movement between activities. For example, do the options provided by ICTs such as

mobile telephony enable us, indeed tempt us, to pack more activities into the day?

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Clearly such a question relates to the wider issue of time use, the timing of activities

and the ‘busyness’ of life. But it also has implications for mobility. A second level

also refers back to a theme of the last chapter. How have ICTs affected the planning

of mobility? For example, how much in practice do people seek out travel-related

information, how much has this changed and why, when and how does it make a

difference to travel decision-making - with what implications? Here the issues of

spontaneity of time planning discussed in the last chapter once again have

implications for mobility. And a third level of analysis concerns how ICTs can have a

bearing upon the subjective experience of travel, as exemplified by changing the

experience of being abroad or being away from home, the experience and of using

travel time for other purposes and the sense of security or pleasure ICTs bring to the

travel experience.

The main research issue as regards the use of portable ICTs in public spaces is

their potential to infringe expectations and understandings about appropriate

behaviour in different social (times and) spaces. While the earliest studies were of the

Walkman, most recent attention has been on the mobile phone. It is possible to

imagine this issue extending to the use of ICTs such as camera phones ands mobile

videophones. In each case, there is scope for further research to pin down the specific

issues relating to each technology, the expectations relating to different public spaces,

strategies for managing the technology and any related communication and

interactions with co-present others. This task has already begun.

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Endnotes

1. This chapter is largely based on a review undertaken within the European action

COST269. The COST269 Mobility Workgroup, 2001, to be found via

http://www.cost269.org.

2. In fact, Urry calls for a ‘mobility turn’ in the social sciences, making different

forms of mobility (not only corporeal mobility) more central to sociology’s core

interests. Indeed, more research into this field has started in several European centres.

3. When discussing how the arrival of the telephone influenced wider social change in

the US up until 1940, Fischer describes the difficulty of disentangling the effects of

the take up of a particular technology from that of other technologies and from other

non-technological factors (Fischer, 1992, p.264). This note of caution needs to be

borne in mind here, and applies equally to the task here of distinguishing the effects of

changing travel patterns from other influences.

4. This type of argument about changing social contexts favouring take up of the

mobile phone has been made in relation to changes other than in mobility. For

example, it has been argued that changes in the public sphere and forms of sociability

aided that success of the mobile phone (de Gournay, 2002).

5. Certainly parents participating in a Norwegian qualitative study observed that the

mobile had helped in this respect (Ling and Yttri, 2003)

6. For example, the European Telsoc five-country study, in 1996 and a 1999 survey

for British Telecom’s Digital Life Programme.

7. Lee, 1999.

8. For example, that it allowed flexibility for employers or for the teleworkers. For a

fuller discussion of motivations related issues about the experience of telework see

Haddon and Lewis, 1994; Haddon and Silverstone, 1993, 1994; Haddon, 1999b).

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9. An exploratory quantitative study in Norway followed up this qualitative analysis,

exploring how much and in what ways mobile phones affected (certain types of)

mobility (Ling and Haddon, 2003). The results suggested that on balance mobile

phones did not generate more trips (although the fixed line did). However, the study

also discussed the problems of interpreting these data and what steps might be

required for more sophisticated research.

10. A similar advantage is shared by the telephone. For example one Swedish study

showed that e-mail use by the elderly was far more likely to be restricted to long

distance messages, with the phone being used for such things as co-ordination of

meetings (Östlund, 1999).

11. Here we should consider a range of portable ICTs, including laptops, palmtops

and organizers. Although we are starting to find research on the details of how these

ICTs are used for business purposes (O’Hara et al 2000) there is less on their social

use.

12. Perhaps this is most dramatically demonstrated in the case of students living

abroad where e-mail especially has meant that they are kept constantly informed

about what is going on back home, lessening the extent to which they are truly away

from home.

13. Personal Communication from Chantal de Gourney.

14. In a slightly different sense, Bull discusses how personal stereo users can have a

sense of being more ‘secure’ in terms of feeling at home and at ease in public spaces

because of the sense of familiarity which the music brings (Bull, 2000).

15. Although the interest in this paper is in relatively public spaces, the on-going work

of creating relatively public and private spaces within the home for the purpose of

making different types of telephone call on the fixed line is described in Lohan, 1997.

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For a discussion of some of the varied meanings of terms such as private, see

Livingstone, 2002, pp.161-2.

16. In the 1996 survey there was some variation between countries, but, for example,

in Italy, in the UK and in Germany over half of the respondents said they had some

negative thoughts when mobiles were used, either in terms of being annoyed or

thinking that the user was showing off. The percentage was slightly smaller in France

and in Spain where mobiles were less widespread at the time (Haddon, 1998a).

17. For example, to take the two extremes, there was a greater willingness to have

them switched on in the (relative privacy of) the car. Mobile phones were most likely

to be switched off at a play or show. The other spaces about which questions were

asked in this survey were the home, restaurants/bars, shops, buses/trains and other

people’s homes.

18. What type of restaurant, and hence what type of social space is involved, makes a

difference. The same point is made in a Japanese study: while youth would be willing

to take voice calls in a fast-food restaurant or family restaurant they would be less

willing to do so in a ‘fancy’ restaurant (Ito and Daisuke, 2003). Of course, there may

also be culturally specific factors at work, with a French study noting that all those

interviewed turned off their phones in restaurants in general – maybe reflecting

something about French culture (Licoppe and Heurtin, 2001). Meanwhile, Italian

research involving observation on trains made a related point. Different kinds of train

constituted different social contexts. For example, high-speed long distance and local

trains were different from each other by virtue of the people who used them and the

duration of the journey. They certainly generated varied patterns mobile usage

(Fortunati, 2003).

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19. To add yet more complexity, Italian research has drawn attention to the need to

consider not only types of social space but also whether one is in company, whether

the space is familiar, whether one is known in that space, whether one is making and

receiving calls, etc. These can all influence mobile phone behaviour (Fortunati, 2003).

20. The strategies researched were moving to another room to make a call, calling

when nobody else was at home and calling from somewhere else outside the home.

To give some idea of how important this was, in most countries about 40% said that

they did this. In keeping with the chapter on youth, younger people used this strategy

more often

21. As we saw in the chapter on children, this was underlined in a later Japanese study

pointing out the relative smallness of Japanese homes, and the fact that youth rarely

had private rooms, but often shared a room with a parent or sibling. Having a second

phone line was also rare, largely because of the expense. This, it is argued, later

contributed to the particular popularity of the mobile phone (Ito and Daisuke, 2003).

22. This was the weighted figure for Europe, allowing for differences in population

between countries. There were small variations between countries (e.g. in the UK this

figure rose to 19%) and younger people were more likely to mention this (in the

overall sample over a quarter of 14-24-year-olds referred to the privacy role of the

mobile phone at a time when the mobile phone was not so widespread (Haddon,

1998a).

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Chapter eight: Changing life circumstances and ICTs

Our longer-term relationship to ICTs can alter, be that in terms of deciding to adopt or

give up a technology or to use it more, less or in different ways. This chapter deals

first with changes in individuals’ and households’ circumstances. Some of these

changes are gradual, some more dramatic, some more predicable and anticipated,

some more unexpected. They include somewhat common phases associated with the

life course1, new work and leisure options and interests, different financial situations,

etc. Although such longer-term change was not emphasized in those earliest

formulations of the domestication framework, it was examined in subsequent research

as well as in some other, especially French, studies.

We start with studies looking at changes in the nature of work and household

composition. These can have a bearing upon our routines and the organisation of

everyday life, providing new orientations and creating new demands. Sometimes

these transitions are accompanied by changes in financial constraints, perhaps best

exemplified by the cases of the unemployed and single parents. How do ICTs become

less or more salient as our situations change? When do they take on new roles because

of these transformations? When do some of these transitions actually reveal a

dependency on ICTs? Or, to refer back to the concerns of an earlier chapter, when do

some transitions lead to possible forms of social exclusion through loss of access to

ICTs?

Alternatively, and perhaps best illustrated by the teleworking example, how can

changed circumstances lead us to adopt of new ICTs? In what ways can even

upgrading ICTs, such as getting a new computer, have ramifications within the home?

And how can such changes alter rules and understandings about how we should use

existing ICTs?

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 Shifting focus, as illustrated by transitions related to gender, the birth of the first

child and retirement, how do communications patterns via ICTs evolve following the

move to a new phase of life? For examples, who now makes calls within the

household, who is called, who answers calls, and how is the purpose and even length

of calls different? We may already have evidence about such matters in relation to the

phone. But in principle equivalent questions could be asked about the mobile phone,

the Internet and any future media.

The last section deals with experiences that derive not so much from the life

course as from the eras through which people live. It explores the changing

circumstances of different generations, of different cohorts of people born at different

times. How do people’s earlier experiences in life, both of technology but also their

tastes and orientations, affect their later consumption of ICTs?

Work change and ICTs

In principle there are a number of ways in which people’s work circumstances change

over time. Examples would be the number of hours worked, the amount of

commuting or whether they have to spend time away from home. All of these can

have repercussions for communication practices and for the use of ICTs. Below we

look at two examples. The first comes from a late1980s German study of the

unemployed and the phone, referred to in chapter two and now examined in more

detail (Häußermann and Petrowsky, 1989). The second is from research conducted in

Britain in the early 1990s on teleworker’s use of ICTs. (Haddon and Silverstone,

1993).

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The transition to unemployment

The German researchers pointed out that, under conditions of longer-term mass

employment, the unemployed had more chance of getting back to work through

utilizing informal networks and actively seeking rather than by going to job centres.

Therefore, as people became unemployed it was important to stay in touch with

various social networks by phone. Through this medium they could find out about

work opportunities, could be recommended by personal acquaintances should a

vacancy occur, could make informal enquiries and could be contactable by potential

employers. Even if they were quasi self-employed, the phone could be important for

managing to get some employment in the informal economy. And it was useful for

such administrative demands as sorting out pensions and other benefits or finding out

what documentation to bring to social security interviews.

Apart from its role in relation to seeking work and sources of income, the phone

could be a significant resource for finding out about special offers when trying to

manage on reduced finances. It could be a means through which others could provide

psychological support, especially given the stigma that can accompany the loss of

work and because unemployment can be a very individualized experience. And

ultimately the phone was just as important for the unemployed as for anyone else in

terms of making arrangements to meet with others. They may have had time to spare,

but they still needed to synchronize it with others and hence plan their schedules. It

was often through the phone that people were invited to a range of social events such

as coffee gatherings, sports or family celebrations, etc. Without a phone it was easy to

drop out of society.

This study, although involving a limited amount of quantitative data, has a

wider salience. The researchers made the general point that while the phone had

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enabled geographical relocation and new forms of social networking, it had at the

same time become a necessary condition for maintaining these networks and patterns

of contact. The more widespread the phone had become, the more difficult it was to

be without one. The researchers used this argument, that the phone was nowadays

important for citizenship, to make a case for the state provision of phones and perhaps

some state support for the costs of usage. Clearly this relates back to the chapter on

unevenness of ICT access and how lack of a commonplace ICT can lead to forms of

social exclusion.

However, some of the arguments could equally well apply to groups not

necessarily thought of as ‘the unemployed’. One example would be the females who

choose to leave the labour market because of the arrival of children and who, perhaps

as ‘housewives’, have less public visibility, certainly in official employment statistics.

Many of these points would also apply to those who become low income earners,

even if they are still working. And these observations often apply to those who

become single parents (to be discussed below). Many of these take up some form of

state benefit because of their children, and hence they are not technically classified as

unemployed. They too could all too easily drop out of social networks. This is why

they appreciated the phone because it enabled psychological support under difficult

conditions.

The transition to teleworking

The British study showed how the move to working at home was sometimes a catalyst

for acquiring new equipment and services such as faxes, answering machines, or e-

mail. Sometimes these were ‘free’ in that they were funded or loaned by an employer

or client. The British study indicated how some teleworkers, who would never have

thought of acquiring various ICTs for purely domestic purposes, could now justify

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these purchases because of their work. Only subsequently did they discover other

personal and domestic uses for the technology2.

Teleworkers faced the problem of controlling the boundaries between home and

work. One specific facet of this problem was that of impression management. The

teleworkers from the early 1990s study were often conscious of the need to present

themselves as competent and professional. This meant conveying the image that they

were operating in conditions convivial to work in order to convince employers and

clients that home life was not a distraction. The phone became much more of a device

for managing such impressions. It was used to portray the home as a workplace.

Sometimes this led teleworkers to install separate phone lines, not only to avoid

blocking the work phone line with social calls, but also so that teleworkers knew how

to answer work calls, how to present themselves. Or else the addition of

answerphones allowed teleworkers to time-shift telephone calls to moments when

they could prepare their presentation and avoid background noise - especially that

made by children.

Where a second work phone line could not be economically justified, as in the

case of some of the clerical self-employed teleworkers, the existing domestic phone

took on an additional role as a work tool. Hence, rules concerning its use often had to

be re-negotiated. It was important to avoid blocking the phone line at certain times

with social calls when this might prevent work calls arriving. Or else telework led to

new regulations about phone use. These covered who could answer it and when, what

they should say, how they should develop a telephone manner and how much noise

could be made in the vicinity of the handset.

The consequences of impression management extended beyond the phone. Once

the home became a place of paid employment, existing ICTs were located, in effect,

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in a new context, a new environment. Managing the sound regime of the home

sometimes became an issue. TVs and audio equipment threatened not only to disturb

the teleworker’s concentration when working but they also allowed domestic life to

make its presence felt. The distractions of home ceased to be contained and hidden

away when the teleworker answered phone calls or dealt with visitors. As a result,

these existing media sometimes had to have new constraints imposed upon their use.

They had to be played more quietly or only at certain times. Lastly, teleworkers were

sometimes conscious of the need to demonstrate symbolically to outsiders and even to

other household members that they really were working, and not just unemployed or

housewives by virtue of being at home. Re-organising and calling the space where

ICTs were located a ‘home office’ was one strategy employed to achieve this effect.

In which case, ICTs were now orchestrated as objects of display. It was not just what

they did but how they looked which became important.

Where equipment was supplied by an employer or client there were sometimes

very clear rules as to how the work tools such as PCs should be used and by whom.

But especially when teleworkers bought their own ICTs for working at home, this

gave both partners and children new access to these technologies and services.

Although allowing children access to the PCs used for work could create worries

about the damage they might cause, many teleworkers nevertheless encouraged

children to use work PCs for word-processing or the development of keyboard

literacy. If the study was repeated nowadays we might expect to see these teleworkers

promoting ‘Internet literacy’ and the use of the Web to support school homework. In

other words, in a process characterized in that research as ‘technological seepage’, the

introduction into the home of new technologies for work could affect the

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technological culture of the household as whole, providing opportunities for other

members of the household to gain new skills.

But that study also found forms of what it called ‘de-privitisation’, whereby the

introduction of work ICTs had implications for social relations outside the home. On the

one hand, ownership of photocopiers, computers or faxes became seen, albeit in some

cases only in a limited way, as a shareable resource. Acquaintances would ask to use the

technological resources in the same way as neighbours might ask to borrow a cup of

sugar. A later study of Internet use indicated that friends, family and others sometimes

‘borrowed’ access to the Internet in the same way (Haddon, 1998c). In addition, several

teleworkers in the study reported how they had been asked to actually produce something

for outsiders on their computers and other equipment. In this facilitative de-privatisation

the teleworker provided technological services to the wider community (or extended

family).

Changing household composition and ICTs

Developments over the life course (or life cycle) lead to the changes in household

composition. Some are more commonplace, as when new members arrive (e.g. are

born) or depart (e.g. as children leave home, or through deaths). These transitions can

have multiple implications for ICT use. For example, when children leave home they

are simply no longer present to use the old home phone, but now that phone is then

used to stay in touch with them.

Certain changes are only experienced by a minority of the population. One

example would be the move to more communal living, with various degrees of social

closeness involving non-kin (e.g. sharing a flat) and kin relationships (e.g. three-

generation households). Such changes also shape the particular ways in which ICTs

and communications of various sorts are managed (see Lohan, 1997 on households of

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friends). For example, in the British studies on the early to mid-90s, various

interviewees discussed the effects of having new, non-family members join existing

family households - such as au pairs and lodgers - which often forced them to re-think

the rules about phone use and paying bills.

As in the case of the work transformations, a particular example from 1990s

British research will be used to explore what can be one of the more dramatic

examples of changing household composition: the move to single parenthood,

especially with the break-up of families (Haddon and Silverstone, 1995). That study

dealt mainly with the fixed line telephone (and media such as the TV). But arguably it

could have relevance for newer ICTs.

The transition to single parenthood and ICTs

Following the move to single parenthood, the basic phone became much more of a

lifeline to the outside world. Without another parent present to go for assistance, the

phone became more essential for emergencies or for critical moments, such as when

the children were ill. And even in the mid-90s some slightly more affluent single

parents were considering buying mobile phones in order to be even more reachable or

to deal with contingencies (e.g. if they were delayed in traffic when coming to pick up

their children).

There were also some basic practicalities. The single parents in the British study

commented on the flexibility that the basic phone gave them in terms of negotiating

childcare with friends and with ex-partners. They could more easily change

arrangements by phone at shorter notice rather than having to plan far in advance their

childcare plans or their ex-partner’s access to the children. For those who managed to

lead a more active lifestyle in their social networks, the phone was simply important

for co-ordinating activities with others.

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 In the study it was clear that the basic phone had also become a social lifeline.

This was partly because of the need felt by many single parents to talk though the

aftermath of family dissolution. But it was also because of the isolation that single

parents often experienced as they were trapped in the home in the evenings through

having stay in with the children. If such a study were to be repeated now it would be

interesting to see if the Internet could offer any benefit in this respect. As a mode of

communication it is in many respects more formal than the intimacy offered by voice

telephony. However, one can think of the various self-help and mutual support groups

that nowadays form on-line to put people in contact with others in a shared position or

predicament in order to discuss experiences and solutions.

However, whatever the potential of new technologies, that same study also

pointed to barriers to their use. Either due to the household no longer having two

incomes, or due to the dependence on state benefits, many single parents (coming

from family break-ups or not) possessed limited financial resources3. This restricted

their ability to afford new technologies. In some cases basic ICTs, like other goods,

were hand-me-downs, gifts or second-hand. Or else other people, especially extended

family members, provided access to such technologies.

Many of these single parents experienced a certain amount of stress both from

economic and social reasons. Their priority, especially immediately after family

break-up, was to sort out their (new) lives. In the early 90s, computers and other

technologies did not come to mind as being relevant for many single parents, as their

horizons were limited by current social circumstances. That said, as life settled down,

such ICTs could come onto their agendas. But for a time this particular transition

could create barriers to adoption and use.

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Life course changes and ICTs

French research has stressed the important influence of changes in the life course

upon communication patterns. To explore these, the late 1990s saw a series of studies

being conducted covering youth leaving home, families moving house, single-parent

families and retirement4.

One general review of the French empirical data on fixed phone use drew

attention to the fact that as young single people formed couples and started families

they had increasing contact with parents and decreasing contact with friends

(Smoreda and Licoppe 1999). For instance, as couples formed there were more calls

between the individuals in the couple to manage everyday life. At the same time, the

number of calls to the friends of the two people before they formed a couple

decreased by half. Meanwhile calls to family members doubled, and increased yet

again once children arrived. Only when people grew older and lived alone again did

they once more start to increase the amount of telephone contact outside the family.

In keeping with the approach taken in the rest of the chapter, the next section

considers three examples in more detail. The first comes from a French analysis of the

five-country Telsoc survey data looking at how gendered use of the phone developed

over the life course (Claisse, 2000). The second is from a French project (part of the

programme noted above) looking at the effects of the birth of the first child on

patterns of sociability via the phone (Manceron et al, 2001). The third is from a

British project from the mid-1990s looking at the consequences of the transition to

retirement (Haddon and Silverstone, 1996).

Changing gender telephone behaviour over the life course

The first French study, analysing the data from the 1996 European survey,

looked at a variety of changes in phone use over the life course (Claisse, 2000). The

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first two factors considered were (a) the main user of the phone in a household and (b)

the main ‘call answerer’5. Initially, young males and females had a fairly equal

inclination to phone. This continued to a large extent as they formed couples without

children. The pattern changed with the arrival of the first child. The domestic

telephone was used more by the mothers than the fathers. Moreover, once the children

had grown up and left, the pattern of women being the main users and call answerers

persisted (amongst those aged 60-69).

The next step in this study involved a factor analysis of three variables - the

duration of calls, the aim of calls and the person spoken to. The aim was to build up a

picture of the evolution of gender practices6. The phones calls of people aged under

twenty-five, and who were still living with parents, were oriented to social networks

of friends. Compared to the parents, this age group used the phone less for getting

information, more for chatting and organising activities. As they grew older (from 14-

17 to 18-25) the pattern was broadly the same, but the older group had more activities

to organize. The only gender difference at this stage of life was that girls had slightly

more communication with their family, and had slightly more interest in chatting,

while the boys emphasized organising activities a little more. Girls’ calls lasted longer

because of this.

The next stage was when people left home, either as single persons or to form

couples. As before, single persons mostly called friends, but family calls rose

somewhat as these young people passed on news to their parents now that they had

left home. Having no-one to talk to in the new home, these single people used the

phone more for chatting, for passing time with others. Their calls were longer than

when they used to live with parents. Although this was a shared gender pattern overall

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(i.e. the male and female patterns were relatively close compared to some other life

stages), the female singles tended to have more chats and longer calls.

Thinking of the group aged under thirty-five, as they formed couples but

before children arrived there were fewer calls for chatting, reflecting the fact that the

couple could now talk to each other in the home. The calls therefore became shorter.

There were relatively more calls to organize daily life. The couple also now had two

families to keep in touch with. At this stage the male changed his behaviour more. His

calls to work colleagues increased and he now used the phone mainly for organising

his activities. His calls were now shorter than before. Females continued to use the

phone just as they had done when they had been single, for chatting, exchanging news

and passing time.

With the arrival of a child practices evolved once more. In keeping with the

theme developed in more detail in the next example, family became more important

than friends, (which remained the pattern for the rest of their lives). As the children

grew older there were some further changes. Work life and non-work interests

(‘associative life’) gained in importance. The female, as we saw, often became the

main user and the main call answerer (in households where there was one person

fulfilling that role). The arrival of more children did not change the male’s behaviour

compared to the previous stage. Females, whether economically active or inactive,

spent less time chatting on the phone and more time organising daily life compared to

earlier. Their communications became shorter. And they managed calls to the rest of

the extended family.

Once the children had left home and the couple reached sixty there was a final

change. With the end of working life, their children setting up home and the arrival of

grandchildren, calls become more social, less about managing daily life. Since time

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constraints had become less strong, they were flexible and more time was available

for chatting and sharing news on the phone. The phone also became a means of

passing time rather than managing it. For those reaching widowhood, calls became

even longer. For the male, for the first time since being single, calls were mainly for

chatting and passing on news. For the first time in his life, calls to family became the

most important ones. With no more working life, he re-centred on the family,

although calls remained brief. The author called this period the ‘feminisation’ of the

phone, and hypothesized that it reflected the way in which masculine identity had

been thrown into confusion by the end of paid work.

The birth of the first child and changes in communications patterns

The French researchers in this second study7 stressed the fact that the dependence of

the child upon its parents had a profound effect on their interactions with their friends

and family. This entailed a re-orientation of ‘telephonic sociability’ (Manceron et al,

20018). The researchers argued, based also on other research, that the social support

network was at its lowest level at this point in the family cycle. The new family

became self-sufficient and centred in upon itself, reorganizing life around the child

and taking on new temporal rhythms.

During pregnancy in the twelve weeks before birth there was a strong increase

in telephone calls (up 25%). After birth this gradually diminished reaching its former

level after twelve weeks. But then traffic continued to decrease. However, these

aggregate data concealed changes in the pattern of communication. There was no

decline in family calls. The parents of the couple remained the main contacts, but a

range of family ties were also altered, as grandparents become great-grandparents and

the brothers and sisters of the couple become aunts and uncles.

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 In general, having a young baby led to a reduction of calls overall and a

reduction in the number of people called. However, intra-familial calls to the new

parent’s partner (at work or by mobile) increased. These were often of a functional

nature and to co-ordinate activities. Meanwhile, the young parents simply had less

disposable time for friends as their priorities altered - some interviewees explicitly

drew attention to this. At this point, the friends were often sorted and put into some

form of hierarchy. Acquaintances were seen less and friends were often divided into

those who appreciated the changed circumstances of the new parents (e.g. who let the

new parents choose the time to make contact) and those who did not. This was often a

division between those friends with children themselves or who anticipated having

children, and those without children or who were single. Such changes were not

irreversible. They were often seen as transitory because the parents anticipated that as

the children grew older they would impose less constraints on the parents compared to

newborns.

The parents now had more contact with those in a similar situation to

themselves. There were more calls to friends with children than to friends without.

One also sees examples of greater contact with previously more distant family

members who had children and as well as contact with more distant acquaintances

(especially wives of the husbands’ friends who have children) because they had

similar experiences and shared the same rhythms of life.

Time slots were established so that friends knew when it was best to call the

parents, or when it was best for the new parents to make a call. The parents used

filtering strategies more, such as letting the answering machine initially take the call

or seeing the number of the caller, in order to prevent intrusions (especially when they

were doing something with the child, like giving him/her a bath).

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 This study also started to consider the role on the newer means of

communication. The mobile phone was increasingly used to announce the birth

immediately after the event. And e-mail was used to spread the news to wider social

circles. In terms of the times slots for communications discussed above, e-mail also

provided the new parents with more room for manoeuvre, given that the parents had

more flexibility in terms of when to send or receive messages. In fact, e-mail was

thought to be perfect in the post-natal period when the women were based at home. E-

mail was also useful for sending baby photos to show the baby’s development.

Many of those interviewed acquired mobile phones either during pregnancy or

in the period shortly after birth to help reach their partner in case of emergencies, to

organize tasks relating to the infant or to contact the baby-sitter or crèche. In other

words, at this point in their life they modified their perceptions of how to use the

different modes of communication.

The transition to retirement and ICTs

There are a few preliminary observations to make about this particular transition. It is

by no means a homogenous experience: there are different retirement ‘careers’ or

‘trajectories’ (Haddon and Silverstone, 1996). The transition can be more or less

gradual (with a sudden end to paid employment at retirement age limits, or a decline

in hours worked over time). It can be more or less expected (e.g. with sudden early

retirement as a form of redundancy). And people respond to it in different ways (e.g.

spending more time on activities in couples, having more contact with family

members such as children and grandchildren, or finding functional alternatives to

work such as voluntary work and roles in various associations). They also face

different constraints, both in terms of health and fitness, but especially in terms of the

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financial gap between those who have occupational (or other personal) pensions and

those living just on state pensions.

Turning now to the implications of retirement for communications, a number of

the participants in this British qualitative study found they used the home phone more.

This was caused partly by the fact that they no longer had access to a work phone,

whereas they used to make some social calls from the office - more often for

organizational purposes rather than chatting. Now they had to make such calls from

home. In addition, many of the participants said that they made more calls nowadays

than before retirement because of the new roles they had taken on, for example,

involving greater contact with their own families. Despite the general pattern of

withdrawal from organizing social activities discussed earlier, some people phoned

more because they led an active retirement in terms of taking on roles on committees,

etc.

But the pattern of phoning after retirement was not a static one. There were

family changes that coincided with or followed retirement. Sometimes these

increased the number of phone calls. For example, some of the young elderly

made more supportive and social calls to their own parents and relatives, who

were perhaps now living alone or who had become increasingly frail. On the other

hand, the death of those elderly relatives could then remove the need for such

calls.

Another transition was in the cases where children left home - that too could

lead to new patterns of phoning. Some adult children continued to live nearby, which

generated local phoning, often to organize meetings. Others moved further a field

reflecting generally greater geographical mobility compared to a generation earlier.

This led to the spatial dispersal of extended families, including dispersal abroad –

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generating longer distance and occasionally international calls. Finally, there were

health changes during retirement. Even when friends or relatives lived relatively near,

the onset of physical mobility problems could mean increasing reliance on the phone.

This study, conducted in 1995, took place at a time when the mobile phone and

Internet were only just starting to develop as mass markets. None of the participants

had either technology. Nor, at the time, did they show a great deal of interest in them.

The one exception was for those who travelled by car. Concern about breaking down

had led them to consider, or acknowledge at least, the emergency use of the mobile

phone. A section below discusses a particular barrier to Internet use – their resistance

to computers.

So how had things moved on after a few years? The P-903 European survey in

2001 found that more and more older users (over sixty years old) had adopted the

mobile phone in the later diffusion groups. The majority of the elderly who had done

so had actually taken out a subscription themselves (as opposed to receiving the

mobile as a gift). By that time, nearly a third of the 65-74 year old age group across

the European countries had acquired the technology. Moreover, the fact that the

general decline in mobile adoption by age had become less steep and the levels were

so high in a country like Norway (where the whole population had a high level of

penetration) suggested that in principle the young elderly were not resistant to getting

mobiles. Indeed, given the increasingly active lifestyle of these young elderly

especially compared to previous generations of young elderly, one can imagine how

mobile phones could have benefits for them (Mante-Meijer et al, 2001). In stark

contrast, among this same 65-74 years old age group on average across the European

countries only about 8% of the respondents were Internet users at this time, with

about double that level in Denmark and the Netherlands.

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The changing experience of generations

It is common to hear comments about how each younger generation has a different

experience through growing up with new technologies. But it may be equally useful to

look beyond childhood in order to consider how different cohorts of people are born,

grow up and live their adult lives at certain historical periods, encountering

technologies and services at different points in their life course. In other words, we

have to ask not only about the technologies that people encounter in their youth. We

have to also ask about the ones they meet when they reach early adulthood, when they

form partnerships and perhaps families, when they reach middle age, when they retire

and when they enter into in the latter end of their lives. The demands and

circumstances of each of these life stages can have a bearing on what these

technologies can mean to them. In this context, one can imagine how relatively easy

to use mobile phones can appear as an extension of the familiar phone. Although in

1995 many people could not see whether the device was really useful or worthwhile

enough they could at least manage to use one. The design of the terminal was less of a

problem.

In addition, the social context in which different cohorts had grown up and

passed through during their life course help to shape their habits and routines, their

values and tastes - and hence their very perception of what different technologies can

offer. To consider both of these dimensions, the encounter with technology earlier in

life and the shaping of habits, values, etc by previous experiences, we return again to

the example of the British young elderly study.

Technical experience of generations: The young elderly

In the case of this generation of young elderly, many first became familiar with the

basic phone through work as this technology became an increasingly common tool in

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many jobs, especially in the expanding white-collar sector after the war. The majority

of the interviewees were both familiar and at ease with the phone. They often

compared this with the unease of their own parents for whom the technology had

arrived later in life. In contrast to the phone, this cohort of people was not on the

whole a computer-oriented generation. Many of those now nearer to being seventy-

five years old had not lived through office automation during their working lives.

Others had actively tried to avoid computers at work. Being very near retirement age

they had not been enthusiastic about taking on new ways of working and learning

computer skills at this stage in their lives. While there were some elderly computer

adopters in that study who had been used to the technology at work, for most the

computer was beyond their horizons. This was not only because it would be

technically difficult to master but also because these elderly people could not envisage

how they would fit the technology into their lives and routines.

In this light, two points have to be made about the P-903 survey findings a few

years later. Apart from the fact that it is a European and not just a British study, in the

six intervening years more of the survey’s 65-74-year-old age group would have

experienced both PCs and indeed the Internet or e-mail in a work context. Given the

findings show that 8% had adopted the Internet by 2001, that suggests considerably

more interest than was being expressed in the mid-1990s. Maybe that is not surprising

given the high visibility of the Internet in those intervening years. On the other hand,

if that figure is still low compared to the mobile phone, part of the reason might be the

fact that among this cohort there remained many for whom computer-based ICTs still

represent a huge technological leap.

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Values, habits and tastes of generations: technical experience of generations.

The young elderly

Many of this generation were from working-class backgrounds. They had undergone

upward social mobility in their own lifetime as middle-class occupations expanded.

Therefore, it was common to have lived as a child in somewhat austere conditions

from the pre-war era into the early post-war years. Although they had enjoyed more

affluence from the 1950s onwards, in certain respects they retained non-consumerist

values. Participants in the British research would often talk about ‘knowing the value

of money’. They were careful spenders, interested in getting a ‘good deal’. They often

resisted rushing to buy the latest version of a commodity. And they had always been

more inclined to replace items when they were sufficiently worn out. Coping with

fixed and somewhat reduced income was not necessarily too much of a hardship for

this cohort: they had managed before and they knew that they just had to be careful.

All this lead to a certain degree of conservatism as regards acquiring newer

ICTs, including telecoms ones or additional facilities. On the whole, people of this

generation were not impulse buyers, and acquisitions had to be justified. They had to

have a perceived usefulness. In interviews, this age group argued in terms of not

‘needing’ any more equipment, facilities or services rather than not ‘wanting’ them.

They would often point out that they had been without all the various new facilities

now on offer so far - and they had managed. While some were more adventurous,

most clearly did not want to try too much experimenting at this stage.

That said, if the usefulness of a technology or service could be demonstrated to

them, and it was relatively straightforward, then it could be considered. For example,

many had acquired VCRs late in their life, often after retirement. In fact, French

research on recently retired people tends to support this. The researchers argued that

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this group were very likely to adopt new technologies (the mobile phone or the

Internet) provided that the ‘utility’ of these technologies was felt to be compatible

with the individual’s way of life (Eve and Smoreda, 2001, cited in Mante-Meijer et al,

2001).

Lastly, many of the interests of the young elderly developed in their earlier

years. For instance, participation in the war or taking holidays abroad affected tastes

for and appreciation of media programmes concerning history and travel. Although

the Internet was not widespread when this study took place, a later Japanese study of

elderly people on-line observed that some of the messages they posted referred to

experiences from their earlier life. These would have been understandable to peers

who had lived through the same era (Kanayama, 2003).

Conclusions

We have seen how changing circumstances can alter the importance of ICTs, as

illustrated especially by the transitions to unemployment and single parenthood. The

latter indicated how some technologies could move, albeit temporarily, beyond the

horizon while others become more important. Indeed, dramatic changes in life such as

these can highlight how dependent people have become on certain basic ICTs like

telephony.

Clearly, changing circumstances can influence what ICTs we adopt, (or give up,

if we think about the Internet dropouts discussed in the unevenness chapter). The

teleworking example indicated how ICTs could enter the home because of new work

patterns. But it also showed how such work changes can alter the role of existing

technologies, such as the phone and computer, affecting how they are managed and

who can have access to them under what circumstances. A change in the situation of

some household members can ultimately even lead to a new competences being

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gained by others in the home and new uses of ICTs in relation to wider social

networks. More specifically, we saw how changes in the life course can lead to

different patterns of communication through ICTs, as indicated in the studies of the

birth of the first child and of the move to retirement. And despite some years of

observations about different male and female patterns of communication, even these

are dynamic, sometimes more and sometimes less distinct from one another.

Of course, there are many other, major and minor, transitions in life that might

well make some difference to our experience with ICTs. These need to be at least

borne in mind in those studies exploring changing use over time. For example, if we

just take the case of work, we might consider the effects of an increase in the travel

component of working, including any new requirements to spend time away from the

home base overnight. People also gain and lose access to ICTs through changes in the

nature of work or as a consequence of the ‘overspill work’ that takes place when

people who are generally workplace-based do some (extra) work in the home.

The other dynamic considered here was the changing experience of different

generations. The study of the cohort of people who were young elderly in the mid-90s

showed how their earlier experiences, both technical and in terms of values and tastes,

could shape their current consumption, or indeed rejection, of ICTs. Of course, we

could in principle appreciate these shared experiences in any cohort of people. For

example, if we reflect upon the studies of youth and mobile phones reported earlier,

this was the first youth generation to acquire and experiment with this novel

technology. Does this mean it will have particular meanings for them in later life?

And what happens to the use of the mobile by this current cohort as its members grow

older and some of the reasons for using the mobile that derived from this particular

teenage life stage no longer apply? As their circumstances change, what elements of

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their practices do they keep and what do they alter (e.g. thinking about text

messaging, for example)? Furthermore, how will future generations of youth (or

younger children) experience the mobile phone differently once this technology has

become more established? In other words, what difference does it make to people’s

relationship with a technology when they grow up with it (just as generations grew up

taking the presence of television for granted) as opposed to being the generation who

first experienced it?

Endnotes

1. We should add that nowadays there is increasing diversity of household forms (e.g.

single parent, childless couples, gay couples) compared to a ‘classical’ nuclear family.

2. The same situation occurred in later studies of Internet access (Haddon, 1999a) and

mobile phone use (Bassett et al, 1997). Technologies were sometimes originally

acquired for work, or justified by work, were subsequently used more for private

purposes.

3. A later US study of single parents found similar results (Russo, 2003). For

example, in surveys single parents were the lowest adopters of PCs. In the qualitative

study some had given up their PCs, or could not find time to use them, and some of

those who did have computers had older models.

4. The France Telecom Research Programme, 1998-2001, was called Cycle de vie,

événments de rupture et pratiques de communication (Life cycle, major life events

and communication practices). It consisted of the projects Décohabitation juvenile

(Youth leaving home); Déménagement de familles et usage de telephone (Families

moving house and use of the telephone); Familles monoparentals et communication –

(Single-parent families and communication); La naissance du premièr enfant et

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sociabilité téléphonique (The birth of the first child and sociability on the phone;

Transfomation de réseaux et des pratiques de communication à la retraite (The

transformation of networks and practices with retirement).

5. In French: ‘standardiste’ meaning ‘switchboard operator’. The question was ‘Does

the same person usually answer the phone when it rings?’ In 90% of households there

was one main user, and in 66% of cases this person was female; there was a main call

answerer in 45% of households, and in these households 73% were female. This latter

finding has a precedent, with another French analyst pointing out women also open

the door more often when the doorbell rings (Mercier, 2001).

6. British Telecom’s research noted how the timing of calls is another variable that

can change over the life course – e.g. with the arrival of children (Lacohée and

Anderson, 2001).

7. There were quantitative and qualitative components to the study. The qualitative

one involved interviews ‘immediately’ after the birth of the child (between birth and

three months) and then interviews with sixteen people when the child was between

nine and twelve months and with another sixteen people when the child was between

twelve and eighteen months. Observational studies took place between the age of six

and twelve months.

8. The same result was found at a multi-country level in the P-903 European study

(Smoreda and Thomas, 2001).

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Chapter nine: The careers of ICTs

This second chapter on the dynamics of our relationships with ICTs begins by

considering the social processes associated with the initial arrival of new technologies

and services. Obviously the factors affecting the initial decision to adopt technologies

are very relevant for understanding the uneven experience of ICTs discussed at the

start of this book, and indeed for appreciating take-up more generally. The first

section take a step back from the moment of first consumption into the social shaping

of technologies. What are some of the wider social influences that help to shape the

initial understanding and expectations of ICTs? This is followed by questions

concerning the early experience of these technologies. What sources of support

facilitate the use of ICTs? If we take the example of the Internet, what are the various

processes involved in learning how to use the Net and learning what is useful or fun?

And how do patterns of use change during the early learning period?

Both domestication research and other studies have argued that particular ICTs

should be seen as entering into the ensemble of other technologies, and indeed other

artefacts, which already have a place in our lives. So how do the new ICTs fit in with,

or rather how are they fitted in with, what already exists? For those ICTs used in the

home, how do they find a physical, although simultaneously symbolic, place in this

domestic setting? When new ICTs are acquired they are brought into a context where

we have developed existing practices relating to the technologies and services we

already possess. In which case, how do those pre-established practices have a bearing

upon the use of new ICTs? Conversely, how do those new ICTs affect our

relationship to the existing ICTs that we use? Such questions provide one route to

start thinking about the social consequences on new technologies.

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 The last section looks at some examples of how our relationship to ICTs can

evolve in the longer term. This can help us to evaluate claims about the degree to

which particular ICTs are integrated into our lives compared to the extent to which

certain uses are contingent. How is our own use affected by the emerging patterns of

use by the wider communities in which we live? How can the arrival of competing

and complementary ICTs change our use? How do developments on the technology

itself affect our relationship to ICTs? And what are the consequences when our

existing ICTs multiply?

Learning about ICTs

ICTs can have associated with them varying degrees of symbolic meaning that go far

beyond their functionality, especially when they are seen as ‘the cutting edge’ or ‘the

future’. One historical example was the wonder that existed, or rather that was

created, around early radio. At one stage radio was seen as the marvel of science,

delivering sound out of the ether, and there were various utopian predictions about

where this would all lead (Douglas, 1986). To take later examples, the initial home

computer boom in the early 80s was boosted by contemporary discourses about the

impending information revolution (Haddon, 1988a) and Internet was associated with

the vision of the Information Superhighway1. It is important to add that although such

symbolic representations of technology may be created and circulated by public

figures, futurologists and the media they can also find a broader resonance in the

public. This can help to fuel popular enthusiasm, as measured by the amount, the

ways and the contexts in which people talk about ICTs in the course of their daily

lives.

These social discourses and popular enthusiasms can help to shape expectations,

sometimes providing a basis for interest in ICTs such that people acquire them ‘for

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the future of their children’ or ‘out of curiosity’ to ‘see what all the fuss is about’. And

it can lead to what might seem to be a novel (but may be increasingly common) form

of consumption. This involves acquiring the technology or service and then working

out what to do with it later. This was certainly the case with the early home computer

in the UK (Haddon and Skinner, 1991; Skinner, 1994) and appears to have sometimes

been the case with the Internet (Haddon, 1999a).

The various agencies, often companies, developing technologies themselves

play a role in creating some of these public representations. Or, indeed, they help to

change them over time. If we look at the history of telecommunications, at different

points in time various national telcos started to actively promote the social uses of the

phone, whereas previously it had been regarded within the industry as a tool for

serious purposes – in large part reflecting the original limited capacity of the network.

In the case of the mobile phone, by the mid-90s advertising campaigns started to

change the identity of the mobile phone from being that of a business tool to being

that of a mass market commodity of use to everyone. By the turn of the century the

mobile was even portrayed as a fashion accessory.

Research on the home computer in Australia highlighted some manufacturers’

attempts in the 1990s to change the image of home computers. They did this by

changing the design of the machines to make them look and feel more like consumer

electronics such as VCRs, in terms of colour and styling (Lally, 2002). The study also

outlined efforts to feminize some products in this way, including iBook, WAP-

enabled phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants) – for example, by making the

latter look like a purse powder compact or clutch purse2. Meanwhile, advertising

images portraying the PC as a kind of domestic appliance that was well integrated into

the home appeared in catalogues alongside VCRs, televisions and even microwave

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ovens, as well as in mainstream family magazines and lifestyle magazines such as

Better Homes and Gardens.

The media also play a role in framing perceptions of new ICTs. Starting again

with historical illustrations, Australian research covering the early 1900s described

how the first radio magazines succeeded in giving radio a broader appeal beyond

being a hobbyist interest and helped to establish the experience and practices of

broadcasting (Johnson, 1982/3). And in the US in the 1950s, TV magazines were

important in addressing and helping to overcome worries about early television (e.g.

its effects on children) (Spigel, 1992).

In the late 1970s in the UK, electronics magazines once again played a role in

actually creating a hobbyist interest in early computers by convincing electronics

enthusiasts that microcomputing should be their next major challenge (Haddon,

1988a). At a later stage, magazines aimed at a wider audience contributed to the

interest that created a mass market. At one point it was claimed that computer

magazine sales were greater than that of the combined women’s magazines. At the

same time, contemporary TV programmes explaining what computers could do

helped to foster an interest in the technology.

During the 1990s in the UK, but the same is probably happening elsewhere, we

saw something similar in relation to the Internet. For example, a range of TV

programmes explained what one could do on the Net3. And in the case of mobile

telephony, 2001 saw the launch of a British magazine specifically for child and

teenage mobile phone users (Mobile M8) explaining what was ‘cool’, what was

fashionable, what was the latest, how the language of texting worked and what fun

could be had with mobiles4.

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 Yet such media coverage can have diverse, sometimes having negative effects.

For example, one US study argued that media coverage contributed to creating the

impression that the Internet adoption was more widespread than it really was, itself

creating anxiety about lagging behind5 (White and Scheb, 2000). In the five-country

European qualitative study of the Internet, for many Dutch interviewees the Net was

disappointing and did not live up to expectations. The Dutch researchers in that

project pointed out that these people had started out enthusiastically, having heard that

the Net was an exciting new medium. Part of their later frustration reflected the fact

that they had believed the hype and general media coverage that promised a little too

much. If we contrast the Dutch with the Norwegian sample who already had far more

(mundane) experience of the Internet through the workplace, the latter often knew

what to expect and thus seemed to treat the Internet far more dispassionately (Haddon,

1999a).

Thus media can play a role in showing us how to use ICTs and what they can be

useful for. They shape expectations about what is worthwhile and they influence

tastes and fashions. But equally, they can create perceptions that do not live up to

reality or expectations that are not fulfilled in experience.

Support in learning to use the Internet

Obviously there are variations in the degree of complexity of ICTs and hence the

difficulty involved in learning how to use them. This is why survey questions asking

about sources of support in this process have tended to address the relatively more

complex ICTs, such as the PC and more recently the Internet. Such questions are

asked less of easier-to-use technologies, like the mobile phone6, although of course

there are some features where we may well receive advice and tips from others (as

when social networks of youth share knowledge about how to get new ringing tones

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and logos). While these questions deal with support in terms of learning how to

achieve something, we can also ask what sources of information we have about when

something might be useful (or entertaining) – which might come from social

networks, from the media, from experimentation, etc.

The European P-903 survey7 asked questions about how people learned to use

the Internet. It appeared that in a country where there was a low penetration, and

generally fewer people with experience of the Internet, it was less easy to draw upon

help from family and friends. Instead people were forced to learn how to use the

system in more formal settings. By contrast, in countries where Internet penetration

was higher, the knowledge was more generally available and it was the more informal

sources of information that became more important (Mante-Meier et al, 2001).

Stages in early use

A review of French research on how we learn to use ICTs more generally argued that

there were a number of steps between first adoption and the technology becoming

more established in our lives. These involved the ‘disenchantment’ of the technology

(i.e. it lost its marvel) and a narrowing of the range usage compared to the initial

exploration phase (Jouet, 2000). While this may seem understandable and familiar,

the picture may be a little more complicated, as we will become clearer through

comparing a number of different studies.

First, this account may not hold true for all groups of people and all ICTs. We

can see this in a US study of first time mobile phone owners who were monitored for

the six weeks after acquiring their devices (Palen et al, 2001). Many expected the

mobile would be used for limited purposes such as safety or work. But over the period

these users discovered more and more circumstances in which the mobile could be

useful and so changed their expectations.

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 The general account of the early career of ICTs was well supported in a French

qualitative longitudinal study of the Internet8 (Lelong and Thomas, 2001). For the

majority of users, there was a decrease in usage after a period of initial enthusiastic

exploration. This was accompanied by an increase in competence and satisfaction.

During the first phase, their searching was erratic, more like surfing, exploring

unrelated things whenever they caught the novices’ attention. Often the time on-line

passed without them realising it. The researchers observed that this early stage was

then followed by a period in which the users showed more self-discipline and used the

Internet more efficiently. Gradually the Internet apprentices learned to interpret better

the information from the search engines. They developed a set of tactics to rationalize

their navigation and resisted various commercial enticements. As they gained

experience, users became more targeted in their approach, sometimes preparing their

search strategies before going on-line. And they anticipated more success. They

reduced the number of times they went on-line, the duration of time on-line and they

went on-line at times when the tariff was lower. The Internet was no longer

considered a plaything. The Net was used more instrumentally as it became more

transparent and familiar (e.g. it was used for acquiring travel tickets, homework, e-

mail, etc.). In contrast to the public discourse about a ‘revolution’ and the Net as an

agent of social change, in practice the Internet was incorporated into people’s existing

habits, scarcely modifying the rhythms or contours of their lives.

If we compare use of the Web and e-mail, the French longitudinal study found

that two patterns of usage emerged (Lelong and Thomas, 2001). While the majority

attempted to master e-mail, the crucial factor was whether they had a stable social

network of people who also used e-mail and who were willing to use it frequently.

Some interviewees who lacked this active network abandoned e-mail completely

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(Lelong and Thomas, 2001). For those with a network of e-mail contacts, using the

medium became a ritual habit and going on-line was an everyday routine, sometimes

at a fixed time the day. In contrast, for those using mainly the Web, going on-line

depended upon the context and was contingent - occurring as and when required,

rather than every day. These users did not go on-line unless there was a specific task.

Compared to the former pattern, the French researchers argue that such occasional

users were less committed to the Internet, there was less ritualization of use.

The slightly earlier European five-country qualitative study of the Internet

found some similar patterns (Haddon, 1999a). In keeping with the French research,

for many people usage decreased and the Internet came to play a more limited role in

their lives, with the Web being used only on specific occasions or restricted to work

purposes. In many households the Internet appeared to be used like teletext, being

handy to have for at certain times for certain purposes. For some of the above users

and also for those who used the Web a little more regularly, the pattern was similar

to the French study. There was less browsing and more searching. Or else people

went to sites that were known to have certain information. Across the countries, e-

mail usage became for the majority the part of the Internet that was most routinely

and regularly used - although some of this usage was still for work purposes. This

was often the function that people were most positive about, involving the electronic

extension of a familiar practice: checking for mail (Haddon, 1999a).

However, the first stage of excitement did not necessarily happen in the home

at all. For example, few Norwegian participants reported early enthusiasm and

experimenting when they first subscribed at home because so many of the sample

had already had their initial experience of the Net at work. The Internet was already

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more mundane by then and they tended to carry over into the home the patterns of

use established in the workplace.

After this early exploratory phase there were always a certain number of

interviewees, across the countries, for whom there was still some pleasure to be had

in exploring the Internet (or more rarely chatting on-line or playing on-line games).

These people, who were not necessarily computer enthusiasts nor indeed just males,

set aside time for such usage. Searching, for example, could easily slip into browsing

if something interesting caught the user’s attention. For some interviewees, then,

relaxing on the Internet could be an alternative to relaxing in front of the television

or reading a newspaper. In yet other cases, usage had steadily grown, and continued

to grow9. For example, they used e-mail more and more as people they knew also

gained Internet access. Some reported that they were planning their own web site (as

self-employed teleworkers), or had recently tried out downloading software or

electronic transactions.

If we now look to the North America experience, the context is immediately

different. Higher adoption rates were always likely to make e-mail more attractive

precisely because of the point made above: compared to many European countries an

individual is more likely to have people they can contact on-line. In a US quantitative

study, a sample first surveyed in 2001 and re-interviewed in 2002 consisted of people

with different levels of experience (Horrigan and Rainie, 2002a). Looking at the

change between interviews, some findings were similar to the European ones. Use

became more serious and functional. However, the participants in this study did more

kinds of things on-line as they gained experience (rather than narrowing their

interests), even though they spent a little less time on the Net. In that sense, the

researchers argued, the Internet had become woven into people’s daily lives more.

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They too described how, with experience, the Internet seemed to lose excitement. Yet

users still valued it as much as before, or more than ever. The complexity of the

changes can be shown in the case of e-mail. After a year has passed, users were less

likely to e-mail family members on a daily basis. However, more sent e-mails to

family and friends about serious subjects such as sharing worries and asking for

advice.

Learning to use the Internet

The authors of the French Internet study outlined how, in general, the literature on the

nature of expertise characterized technical know-how. The knowledge was often tacit,

uncodifed and passed on from person to person rather than being explained in

documentation (Lelong and Thomas, 2001). The researchers argued that knowledge of

the Internet was similar. Users found it difficult to put their expertise into words, to

describe in detail their newfound abilities.

Yet at the same time, all of those interviewed stressed the necessity of intensive

and prolonged practice, the laboriousness of acquiring competence and the investment

that it required. They evoked the metaphors of work and school, of being systematic,

of persevering, of working as hard as possible - often mentioning that this was a solo

effort, involving time alone using the Net. To progress it was necessary to stop relying

on manuals, on hot-lines, on friends you could call up by phone. Instead it was

important to develop one’s own competence in order to cope with difficulties and not

depend on others - to be autonomous10 (Lelong and Thomas, 2001).

A slightly different image emerges in a Canadian longitudinal study of Quebec

teenagers. Although the adolescents learned to use the Internet very quickly, the

knowledge of the majority remained basic. These users did not look into the full

potentialities of the technology (Millerand et al, 1999). The teenagers learnt the

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minimum in order to surf and to chat and did not invest time in learning more about

navigation aids, for example. They only had a vague idea of the architecture of the

network. But that did not prevent them from using it. It did not matter to them if they

were not sure how they had reached a certain site. The pleasure of discovery was

enough. The researchers observed that usually it was family and friends who first

taught them the rudiments of navigation – in contrast to working through manuals.

This picture fits in with the findings of the ore wide-ranging review of French

research on ICTs. It argued that normally only a minority of users invest heavily in

their ICTs, such as Internet enthusiasts (Jouet, 2000). The majority are content to

master only some of the functions (e.g. only a few of those offered by the software).

Nevertheless, the studies reviewed generally suggested that this minimal exploration

was often enough to provide sufficient satisfaction in proportion to the effort invested.

Locating ICTs in the home

Where ICTs are located in the home is important because it can have a bearing on use.

However, finding a space for technology is not merely a question of finding ‘room’ -

it reflects family ideologies (Silverstone et al, 1992; Silverstone and Haddon, 1996b;

Ling and Thrane, 2001).

In chapter three, we saw that parents often put the computer in a place where

they could monitor children’s use. In chapter four, the decision about where to locate

the phone was once again used as a strategy for controlling the technology. But using

location to restrict use is not the only consideration. Especially when there are several

children in a household, decisions about location can reflect attempts to share

resources in the home. One US study observed that this was a key reason for locating

the PC in a public space within the home (e.g. dining room, family room, spare room)

or else in a semi-private one such as the study (Frohlich and Kraut, 2003). In a similar

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spirit, a Norwegian study found people sometimes placed the computer in the parents’

bedroom since it was regarded a more neutral terrain in the home compared to one of

the children's bedrooms (Ling and Thrane, 2001).

Some decisions about location actually attempted to broaden ICT access and

usage. French researchers studied experiments that provided people with new

terminals to access the Internet. They observed that in the homes that already had

Internet access via a PC, the participants had initially imagined that the new terminals

would somehow collectivise Internet usage – where the Net had previously been the

domain of one family member (Lelong and Beaudouin, 2001). It was because of this

aspiration that they often placed the new terminals in communal rooms (e.g. the living

room, dining room).

Even if ICTs like the computer find a physical place in the home, this can still

create problems. For example, locating PCs in public spaces within the home can lead

to problems such as a lack of privacy and affect the user’s ability to concentrate

(Frohlich and Kraut, 2003). Sometimes the presence of the technology may also come

into conflict with some of the values associated with home life. For example, the

Norwegian researchers pointed out just how difficult it was to choose a place to put

the PC in many households (Ling and Thrane, 2001). The living room was sometimes

felt to be inappropriate because the computer represented work. This clashed with the

type of place that the living-room was supposed to be. Interviewees also talked of the

noisy fan in the PC, the ugly appearance of the machine and the fact that it generated

paper and other clutter. So even when the computer was reluctantly allowed into the

living room, it was sometimes camouflaged by visual barriers or located in back

corners11. In the long run, the researchers thought that there was potential for

perceptions to change over time. The authors referred back to related Norwegian

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discussions when TV sets were first introduced in the 1950 and 1960s. At that time

television itself broke with the previous conventions whereby the living room was

supposed to be a place reserved for reading and conversation12.

Lastly, some decisions about the location and use of ICTs are affected by

household members’ desire to manage the impression they give to the outside world, to

manage display (Silverstone et al, 1992; Silverstone and Haddon, 1996b). This was

particularly clear in a British qualitative study of telework and ICTs in the early 90s, as

described in chapter four.

The influence of existing practices on the consumption of new ICTs

When assessing how much the Information Society is ‘revolutionary’, critics have

questioned the speed and scale of change, Another approach has been to ask to what

extent new innovations develop from what already exists and therefore to what extent

change is really ‘evolutionary’. For example, in many senses television built upon

programming practices established by radio (Winston, 1989). And radio itself

originally drew up practices from, for example, vaudeville.

But if the very form that ICTs take builds upon predecessors then this is itself

relevant for understanding their later consumption. For example, the action genre of

video games was in part derived from the game-play of pinball. In fact, video games

machines were first introduced into arcades as a replacement for pinball (Haddon,

1999c). In which case, we can appreciate why the practices of (especially young

males) collectively competing to get the highest scores in interactive games, watching

others play and learning tactics themselves derived in large part from the origin in

pinball.

People build upon past experiences when faced with new ICTs. This point was

emphasized in the review of French research, whose author referred to the longer-

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term collective construction of use. Uses of ICTs are always inserted into family and

work practices that pre-exist or are already under construction. The adoption of ICTs

takes place against a backdrop of preceding techniques and practices, and new uses

are often an extension of what has gone before (Jouet, 2000).

This can be illustrated in a Canadian study of Internet use by Quebec teenagers.

This research first pointed out how these adolescents visited web-sites that were

related to their pre-existing interests (e.g. in sport, TV, music, cinema, etc.)

(Millerand et al, 1999). The researchers then discussed the sociability patterns of this

age group - how, for example, these young people liked to chat among their friends.

This practice carried over into Internet use. Friends sitting in the same room full of

computers would talk to each other or else they would chat while standing together

looking at a screen. The teenagers also preferred the on-line chat function compared

to e-mail because it enabled immediate chatting, like the telephone (Millerand et al,

1999). As regards the mobile phone, various researchers have commented on the fact

that some modern usages reflect older interests. For example sending secret text

messages and mobile e-mail in the classroom is an updated, and less visible, version

of passing paper notes around without the teacher seeing (Ling and Yttri, 2002 for

Norway; Ito and Daisuke, 2003 for Japan).

What we learn to do with one technology can affect our evaluation (and take-

up) of another. For instance, in the French study of new terminals for accessing the

Internet (e.g. web-phones, web-TV) the researchers argued that existing users had

learnt to do some things on-line precisely because their original access had been via

the PC interface. This meant that it was actually a disadvantage to use certain

alternative terminals if they did not allow the practices that relied upon having a hard

disc available with utility programs, using a mouse or other pointing system, typing

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on a keyboard, etc. On some of these alternative terminals the screen was perceived as

being too small (relative to the computer), the keyboard was seen as non-standard

(compared to the computer), and e-mail could not be saved or printed. All of this led

to some frustration. (Lelong and Beaudouin, 2001). The point is that for PC-users, the

computer was the reference point against which all other alternatives were judged –

and found wanting.

The influence of new ICTs on consumption and on existing technologies

To what extent do the newly adopted technologies compete with or complement

older ICTs? Historical examples might include the effects of television watching on

cinema going and radio listening. These latter declined significantly, an effect that has

been explained by the ‘functional equivalence’ of these different options (Robinson et

al, 2002). Yet, other analysts have pointed out that the picture is not so

straightforward. The influence of TV’s arrival was not just one of decreasing the time

spent going to the cinema and listening to radio. The experience of these other media

changed, as their use became more specialized (Johnsson-Smaragdi, 2001 on radio).

This author observed that at a societal level old media are rarely completely displaced,

in contrast to the level of the individual where particular people may give up some

ICTs.

Later examples of a certain amount of displacement might include the way

newly arriving TV channels, including those of satellite, have influenced how much

time people spend watching the existing terrestrial ones. In the communications field,

the equivalent question we might want to ask is about the extent to which mobile

telephony and e-mail might have had any effect on our use of the fixed phone.

The review of French research on ICTs in general came to the conclusion that

new innovations often complement the older ones. For example, video games did not

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substituted for the TV, nor has electronic messaging displaced the telephone. But

these new ICTs lead us to use pre-existing objects in new ways and in general

increase the complexity of our media and communication practices (Jouet, 2000).

This sometimes means that the use of all media is adjusted (Bolter and Grusin (1999),

in Livingstone, 2003).

A British longitudinal survey would provide some support for this conclusion

about complementarity in the case of telecoms13. First, it showed that only about a

quarter of those surveyed thought that e-mail made no significant difference to their

use of the traditional phone. The remainder were equally divided between whether the

impact of e-mail was large or small (Haddon, 2000c). In the five-country European

qualitative study, e-mail usually complemented fixed line telephony, not only for

social messaging but also when interviewees sought information. People with the

Internet still found times when they preferred to ask for information over the phone.

The main exception was in the case of international calls, where cheap (or cost-free if

made from work) e-mails sometimes replaced expensive calls to other countries. Or

they led to more communication with people abroad than would have taken place in

the past. For those few who had fax machines, some faxes had been displaced by e-

mail. But even the fax machine remained a complementary technology when people

wanted to send a text that was only available in hard copy form. For some, e-mail had

replaced letter writing to those friends who were seen less regularly.

French research on early mobile phone use suggested that when people want to

make longer social calls they often still used the traditional phone (De Gourney et al,

1998). The British longitudinal survey conducted at the turn of the century also

showed that people did not think that the mobile phone was substituting for traditional

telephony to the same extent as e-mail. Nearly four-fifths thought that the mobile

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phone had made hardly an impact on their use of the fixed line. This suggests that for

the vast majority of people mobile calls complemented traditional phone use rather

than replacing them - i.e. the mobile calls were additional, for whatever reason. The

other implication is that while the mobile phone allowed people to replace fixed line

calls in terms of time-shifting certain calls to more convenient moments, these

statistics suggested that this was not a major practice adopted by the majority - at that

time (Haddon, 2000c). The UK, like other countries, has seen an increasingly

proliferation of mobile phone tariffs, making some calls effectively ‘free’ (free

minutes per month, free calls to people using the same operator etc.). And fixed line

providers have started to offer flat rate fees, per month. It remains to be seen how

much effect these changes will have on the current pattern of calls

When we turn to the relation between Internet use and TV viewing, the

quantitative evidence is mixed. This may in part reflect methodological

considerations14. In a US study in which people were interviewed in 2001 and re-

interviewed in 2002, a quarter claimed that the Internet had led to a decrease in the

time spent watching TV (Horrigan and Rainie, 2002a). Some cross-sectional surveys

have also found this relationship (Nie and Erbring, 2002). On the other hand, other

US analyses, of more than one dataset, suggest that Internet use has not led to less

television viewing overall (Cole and Robinson, 2002; Robinson et al, 2002; Neustadtl

and Robinson, 2002), a point also made in a UK longitudinal study15 (Anderson and

Tracey, 2001, 2002).

We might at least get some clues about the detailed processes at work from the

five-country European qualitative study on the Internet. A number of interviewees

reported that they had switched from watching some television programmes to using

the Internet at certain times. But, these particular people tended to have less interest in

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television generally. Or else this switch to the Internet happened at those times of the

day when they had a low commitment to watching TV (Haddon, 1999a). However,

the Internet could not displace television at times when, for example, there was a

stronger commitment to particular programmes (e.g. the news) or where TV watching

counted as family time (e.g. watching in couples or with children). And the Internet

could not so easily displace television watching when the latter was perceived as

‘resting time’. This might be after work or late in the evenings when fatigue had set in

and a less demanding activity was desired. As regards information from the TV, the

UK research found that while the Internet had occasionally led to some decline in

teletext use, for the most part the technologies were complementary and teletext

continued to be used (e.g. for weather, TV listings, holidays etc.)

Finally, in the Quebec research, the Internet did not, on the whole, lead

teenagers to change their evaluation of or practices relating to traditional media such

as television and radio. The exceptions were that some of the more intensive users

now played less video games and watched less TV. However, quite a number did

comment on the fact that the Internet allowed them more freedom than television,

whose choices were in the form of fixed programmes. Nevertheless, the Internet did

not simply displace all television watching – the teenagers often went on-line after

watching the TV programmes that they liked (Millerand et al, 1999).

We need to be sensitive not only to any shifts in the use of existing ICTs

brought about by the arrival of new innovations but also to the new issues within

households which they raise. For example, in British research on ICTs in homes

conducted during the early 1990s, some of the participants reported new conflicts

between parents and children over access to the TV once video games consoles

entered the home. By requiring the TV screen for display, games competed with

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broadcast programmes (Haddon and Silverstone, 1994). If we take a slightly older

example, in the early to mid-1980s, early British home computers utilized the TV

screen as a monitor. One domestic consequence of this development was the transfer

of any second TVs sets to the children’s bedrooms (e.g. TVs that used to be based in

the kitchen and which could be watched during meals or while cooking took place).

But while these early games and computers provided the justification for granting

children access to these second TV sets, those children could then use sets to watch

television programmes in private. In some households this was the first time that this

had been allowed (Haddon and Silverstone, 1994).

Longer term Careers of ICTs

US analysts have drawn attention to how the ‘shifting environment’ in which

ICTs exist can influence patterns of use (Cummings and Kraut, 2002). As evidence of

this, the researchers compared responses from identical people in 1995 and then again

in 1996. People’s use had altered even over this short period. In the first survey the

Internet was used more for work than pleasure. But by the time of the second survey,

this difference had vanished16.

This environment referred to by these analysts could include changes in mass

media coverage, as in the case of increased references to e-mail in news articles, in

popular films and in cartoons. It could include what other people do. The fact that

more people went on-line made e-mail an even more attractive function. And it could

include the preferences and expectations of other people, as when friends made

comments about e-mailing each other: ‘As a community of users appropriates an

innovation, they develop and communicate norms about acceptable use, which can

influence the behaviour of peers and subsequent generations’ (Cummings and Kraut,

2002, pp.224).

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 In addition to changing representations and wider patterns of consumption,

part of that shifting environment consists of changes related to the technology itself.

These analysts cited the arrival of new services on the Internet, some of which had

emerged as companies themselves responded to changes in the user base and

motivations. For example, the development of instant messaging and ‘buddy lists’

made the Internet more attractive for interpersonal communication. Meanwhile ‘high-

speed networks make it more appropriate for transporting bandwidth entertainment

applications’ (p.223) such as downloading music files and playing graphics-filled

games.

We can see a similar process in British research during the mid-1990s. This

revealed how new telephone services had had a bearing on the way the basic fixed

phone was used (Haddon, 1997a). For instance, some of the young elderly

remembered when it first became possible to order by credit card over the phone.

Their subsequent usage of the phone increased once they got into the habit of buying

various goods and services in this way. The 80s and 90s saw an increase in technical

helplines, social support lines (e.g. the Samaritans), chatlines as well as radio phone-

ins and the promotion by TV companies of competitions where the audience is invited

to phone in with answers - at premium phone prices.

Such additions affected not only phone usage. They influenced the whole way

in which the phone was managed in some households. For example, fears of teenagers

running up huge bills on chatlines, or indeed accessing sexlines, led to anxiety and

domestic conflicts. Radio phone-ins required new forms of negotiation. Some parents

limited the extent to which their children could take part in such competitions because

of the implications for the phone bill. Of course, the Internet has itself given the

phone a new role. It has led to similar concerns about costs, about blocking the phone-

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line and about what can be accessed from the home. And it has led to new ways of

managing the use of the phone for going on-line (Haddon, 1999a).

What about other changes in the nature of ICTs? Research has shown how

changes in the quality of connections, the use of new types of terminal as well as

speed and tariff changes can all affect consumption. For example, a French study of

experiments using ADSL found that broadband led to more diverse and more

sophisticated use. People played more on-line, took part in forums and discussions,

downloaded more files, made more use of multimedia and constructed more personal

web-pages. The high speed allowed greater fluidity in navigation, and so enabled

people to more explore more complex functionalities. The researchers argued that the

rapid response enabled by faster transmission speeds facilitated trial and error

learning and that the flat rate of payment associated with these new forms of access

removed worries about the cost of learning. So other people besides the main ‘expert’

in the household could learn to use the Internet (Lelong and Beaudouin, 2001).

If we consider the wider or public history of the mobile phone, in its relatively

short life as a mass market product it has already evolved in certain respects. There

are of course the changes in design, most visibly in its shrinkage in size and

presentation as a fashion object. In terms of functionality, we saw how the addition of

text messaging had important implications for its use by youth. Changes in marketing

in terms of the addition of pre-payment cards had a bearing on how the phone was

managed within household relationships (Ling and Helmersen, 2000). And we just

noted the proliferation of tariffs.

It is not just the arrival of totally new innovations that makes a difference to the

usage and management of ICTs in the home. The multiplication of already familiar

technologies is also a factor. For example, having extra telephone handsets in private

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spaces such as bedrooms enabled more privacy for individuals when they made calls

from home (Haddon, 1997a). The British teleworking study showed that when a

teleworker up-graded the computer it often meant that partners of teleworkers and

their children could now have easier access to the old PC. While this led to a change

in the career of those particular old computers, it also had implications in terms of the

computer’s general place in the home. It reduced conflicts arising from different

people wanting to use the machine at the same time. Finally, there is the case of

second TV set. The arrival of a new TV set not only meant a potentially new role for

the old set. It can also changed the experience of viewing, reducing communal TV

watching - and hence ‘family time together’ - as on occasion some household

members retired to another room to watch the particular programmes they wanted to

see on the old TV set (Haddon and Silverstone, 1994).

Conclusions

To sum up, wider social discourses in general and media coverage in particular can

have a role in influencing the reception of ICTs. They help to create interest, even

enthusiasm, but they also shape expectations. Media, sometimes at the instigation of

companies, can also act as part of the shifting environment in which technologies are

located, presenting new representations of those technologies. This serves to underline

a key theme of this book, the importance of examining the various social contexts in

which individuals act in order to understand their experience of ICTs.

One such context is our experience of existing technologies, since these can

affect our relationship to newer ICTs. This makes it all the more important to consider

the whole media and communications picture, the interrelation between new and old

ICTs, rather than evaluating each element in isolation. Conversely, the arrival of new

ICTs can alter our relationships with the ICTs that we already use, although it appears

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to be only rarely that one completely displaces the other. More commonly, as our

repertoire of options expands, we readjust our practices.

Domestication analysis initially focused on early career of ICTs, especially the

period before and immediately after adoption. But it did so in terms of specifying a

range of general processes such as ICT use finding a place in people’s time structures.

If we want to examine the early careers of specific technologies, then we have to take

into account their particular nature, including such matters as what one can do with

them. Using the worked example of Internet use, we saw how it was possible to

examine a range of developments during this early stage. These included changes in

the purpose for which the Net was used, the range of uses, the manner in which it was

used, the timing and circumstances of use, the degree to which it was valued or found

to be exciting and the way and extent to which expertise developed. Moreover, some

these studies showed the variety of technological careers that could emerge for

different individuals and in different households.

While early domestication work had outlined the general processes by which

ICTs find a physical and symbolic space in the home, subsequent empirical work has

provided far more detail of the particular factors at work. We have seen that the

decision as to where to locate ICTs can be used as a strategy either for limiting use or

for promoting access. It can be a way of managing the impressions we give to others.

But that process of location is also shaped by the values associated with domestic

spaces. This create dilemmas, unease and attempts to alter the visual impact of ICTs

in these spaces.

Finally, although the early domestication literature said relatively less about the

period after that early career, in this chapter we have seen some of the factors that

have a bearing upon our longer-term experience of ICTs. These include the wider

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adoption of these technologies and the changing norms about use, new public

representations of technologies, developments in nature of the ICTs themselves, the

arrival of complementary or competing technologies and services and even the sheer

multiplication of existing technologies. These can all alter our relationships to ICTs,

not only in terms of patterns of usage but also in terms of how we experience and

have to socially manage them.

Endnotes

1. Here we have a sharp contrast with the mobile phone, which was never included in

these discourses, which never had the symbolic prominence of the Internet, despite

being successful in the marketplace.

2. The process of feminization was also noted in Norwegian research on changing

mobile phone advertisements and images of gender (Bakke, 1997).

3. Media coverage is not, however, monolithic. One study of three journals in

Germany showed some differences in their representation of the Internet (Rössler,

2001).

4. The way in which such representations work, associating symbolic values with

mobile phones, has been explored more systematically in a study of non-promotional

Chinese print media in Hong Kong (Yung, 2003).

5. The researchers reported a survey showing that two-thirds of those interviewed,

including users, overestimated the level of adoption and thought of themselves as

lagging behind others.

6. One early US trial conducted in 1993 allowed participants to use mobiles before

they were widespread. This showed up some of the difficulties that users faced even

with technology that in many ways resembled the familiar phone. Examples of

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difficulties included figuring out the need to end the call when hanging up, working

out how to set up and obtain access to voice mail, navigating menus and clearing the

display when making a dialling error (Gant and Kiesler, 2001). Even by 2001, another

US study was showing that some confusions still existed as regards

mobile phone features and billing (Palen et al, 2001). It would appear that problems

and misunderstandings related to mobile use was covered less in European research.

Since the mobile markets were generally becoming more established there, different

questions have dominated research agendas.

7. For example, the P-903 research found that across the European sample the largest

portion of the Internet users had initially been helped out by a school or work

colleague (29%), 25% were helped by a friend or partner and 25% found out for

themselves with or without manuals. Only 1% had used a helpline. There were

differences between the nine countries. In some countries with lower diffusion rates,

use was often associated with institutional settings, i.e. at work or at school or

university. Almost half of the Internet users from the Czech Republic had learned to

use the Internet from a school or work colleague, while in the other countries this

percentage was much lower, between 21% and 33%.

8. This study involved interviews with thirty people four months after they first

gained access to the Internet. They were re-interviewed after a year.

9. This general point that usage can change in a variety of ways, sometimes

decreasing, some times increasing, was also made about computer use in an

Australian study (Lally, 2002). As in the Internet study, Lally found that while for

many the ‘novelty effect’ of computer use wore off, for others some of the excitement

remained.

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10. However, in the five-country study of the Internet there were examples of people

who were willing at times to turn to outsiders for particular forms of help even after

they had mastered the basics of the Internet.

11. In an Australian study, within a broader discussion of how computers found a

place within the ensemble of objects in the home, Lally discussed how the home

computer was made to fit in with the aesthetics of the household, for example, by

having computer covers made with a fabric to match the décor of the room (Lally,

2002).

12. The authors also pointed out that the TV set was only just starting to be

established in Norwegain kitchens. In fact, for many Norwegians it still does not fit in

there. There is a trend towards having a large kitchen as a space for the family to meet

up together and hence the TV’s arrival is a threat to this goal. For some the kitchen

remains a TV-free zone, for others it is allowed in but only if it is a small set, while

yet other households only allow certain viewing in the kitchen, e.g. the news.

13. Data from the 1996 Telsoc five-country survey showed the users of mobiles were

actually heavier uses of the fixed line. This does not prove a causal link, but it does

suggest that substitution was not taking place (Fortunati, 2001).

14. Robinson and Godbey (1999, p.156) discussed the difficulty faced in ‘trying to

estimate the complex effects of a new technology on their lives’ and therefore

favoured a survey reporting what people did yesterday. Although they initially found

that more computer use correlated to less TV viewing, on deeper analysis this result

could be explained away by the influence of social class (people from higher social

classes watched less TV and were more likely to be computer users). When the

researchers looked specifically at on-line users, their TV viewing was not much

different from the rest of the population.

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15. The authors observed that if use of the Internet takes time away from other

activities, it might do so by adjusting small amounts of the time to spend on a range of

activities. This argument was reinforced by the replies from the qualitative component

of this study, in which people could often not pinpoint exactly what the time for

Internet use had displaced.

16. Cummings and Kraut acknowledged the fact that they only managed weak results

but observed that this was a small sample examined only over a short period.

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Chapter ten: Conclusions

Each of the chapters in this book has signposted key issues – be they methodological

or conceptual – identified gaps in approaches and indicated the scope for further lines

of analysis. The conclusion now reflects upon the core framework of domestication

that has shaped this introductory text. It then considers the implications of the issues

raised for those involved in companies researching and designing ICTs and for

students entering this field of study. Lastly it considers how we might go about

evaluating the social consequences of ICTs - as a worked example for students to

think about how this material might be used 1.

The domestication framework

The introduction indicated that the domestication framework provided the main

springboard for thinking through the various chapters. This influenced the examples

drawn upon, some of the agendas of interest in this book and many of its organising

principles. In this sense, readers entering this field of study need to be aware that there

are no neutral introductory texts. That includes this one.

That said, this book has attempted to address related agendas and make

connections with other traditions of research, even if the researchers concerned would

not necessarily see themselves as operating within the domestication framework.

These related areas include various studies from communications research, studies of

social networks, traditions particularly focused on the process of learning to use ICTs

or becoming a user, work on gift relationships and research on the experience of time.

Some literatures can compliment and inform the type of micro-social analysis

associated with domestication, such as the wider societal social construction of

parenthood and childhood.

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 The domestication framework has served to sensitize researchers to some of the

processes at work in incorporating ICTs into everyday life. It has been employed

outside of academic contexts. A number of the studies cited throughout this book

were sponsored by companies. The chapter on uneven adoption indicated how this

framework could be relevant to those operating in the field of policy. And while

methodologically associated with qualitative research, the chapter on managing

relationships showed how the interests of the framework could be translated into

quantitative studies.

The chapters on mobility and social networks both indicated ways in which

there remains scope for expanding the areas where ideas from domestication could be

applied. In the case of the mobility, this meant looking outside the home to deal with

certain facets of portable technologies, ICT-related interaction in public spaces and

emerging agendas on mobility. In the case of the social networks, this involved

looking beyond the interactions of household members to consider interactions with

social networks and ask what equivalent process of domestication may exist within

such collectivities.

This raises the question of whether one can start to go further than considering

known members of social networks to talk about domestication processes amongst

certain sections of society. Or, indeed, to talk about domestication by society itself –

as some writers have done. Maybe. But then it is important to remember the original

context in which domestication was formulated. In the introduction we saw how that

early work provided a general framework for processes such as how ICTs are fitted

into the time and space structures of the home, or rather, of different homes. What

would the equivalent processes be at a societal level?

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 The more problematic question or claim that one sometimes encounters

concerns whether a particular technology or service has ‘been domesticated’ in

society. If there is a lesson to be learnt from the micro-social analyses described in the

chapters on changing life circumstances and the careers of ICTs, it is that we are

dealing with a dynamic process. This should make us wary of saying that an end-state

has finally been reached. We can always question the degree to which ICTs are

integrated into our lives and ask how much scope there is for that to change.

Implications for product developers

The growth of interest shown by ICT companies in researching this field was outlined

in the introduction. We saw that quite a number of the studies cited in this book were

financed in part or in whole by companies developing ICTs. Many of the European

studies came from social scientists specifically working within or on behalf of

telecom companies. In addition, many design and engineering students, some of

whom might one day work on the development of ICTs, now have a social science

input within their courses. Since both the company researchers and students of ICTs

are intended audiences for this book, it is worth making some specific final

observations for these communities.

For those readers starting out in the ICT industries, this book has emphasized

the merits of considering not just individuals as potential users of technologies, but

various aspects of the social contexts in which they operate. People do not just use

ICTs but they manage them, largely because they are interacting with others. We have

seen the various ways in which this interaction shapes the experience of ICTs,

whether it is interaction in the household, or amongst wider social networks. We have

seen how it influences the very interest people take in some technologies in the first

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place, their ability to use them, the time available for using ICT, and indeed the

particular usages and practices that emerge.

How does this translate into a practical guide for product and service developers,

be that in market research, various levels and types of design, product presentation,

pricing, deciding routes to market, etc.? It means looking beyond anticipated users to

be aware of gatekeepers. They may or may not use technologies themselves, but how

might they shape the access and usage of others? It means asking how usage, or

particular forms of usage, is going to be socially supported. In this respect, what are

the difficulties faced by particular groups when acquiring and using ICTs and in what

ways can the developers help to overcome these?

We have seen how it is important to be aware that ICTs are always symbolic.

Over and above the images offered by their developers and providers, ICTs can have

perceived potential consequences for social life. They can offer the promise of a better

future or pose a threat. The latter has been shown in concerns about the effects of the

Internet on our sociability and about the consequences of TV for the balance in our

lives. More generally, these are worries about what type of people ICTs will make or

entice us to become. So whether people’s reactions are positive, negative or

ambiguous, one question for developers is how and why technologies and services

take on specific meanings?

The take-up of new ICTs is influenced in part by the experience of what has

gone before. What will the relation of new ICTs be to existing ones? In what way do

they involve building on past practices? How do they change our relationships to and

use of older technologies? In other words, how will the arrival of new ICTs change

the way we manage our ensemble of ICTs, or our range of communications options?

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 How would knowing the history of past innovations (and which past

innovations) affect forecasts of whether and how adoption of new ICTs might change

over time? When forecasting the usage of particular products and services, what

constraints on use do product developers believe that people face, in terms of time as

well as other factors? What can be learnt from non-adopters and drop-outs, whose

actions question the product and the role it can play in their lives? What issues and

problems does the arrival of new ICTs in people’s lives raise?

When trying to chart markets, what social process are at work behind the

construction of any particular adoption and usage figures? In other words, what are

they including and excluding? And what behaviours should we consider examining to

understand more fully what ICTs mean in people’s lives, what role they are playing

and how integrated they are into people’s routines?

The chapters that have gone before aim to sensitise product developers to the

elements that might be considered in developing and answering such questions. One

way to actively engage with this material is to develop this checklist of questions

further. Or ask how the various studies cited across the chapters answer these

questions. These chapters provide specific examples as well as some general

guidelines about where to look, what questions to ask and what frameworks could be

useful. Nevertheless, those developing ICTs still need to apply these in their particular

areas of innovation.

Research on the social shaping of ICTs has already shown how those

developing products often act like ‘detectives’, looking for evidence when mounting

business cases (Cawson et al, 1995; Haddon, 2002). The examples discussed in this

book should help to enhance that process.

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Implications for students

Turning to the student readership, obviously some of the questions they would want to