Transforming contexts of social interaction: Computer use in the office, home and community contexts

The aim of this thesis is to get an understanding of the more general effects on society of the extensive and increasing ICT use in various contexts within society. This work is concerned with how ICT use in various ways is transforming and shaping the information society through continuously changing the contexts within it. In order to reach this aim, the purpose of this thesis is to describe what will here be called the 'virtualization process', consisting of two levels of processes with a link in between: a) the way we think, act and interact with and through ICT, i.e. the way we use and interpret ICT in a given context and b) the way this action, this use and interpretation, is continuously structuring and re-constructing the socio-technical contexts where the action and interaction is occurring, i.e. contexts within the information society. In order to capture the virtualization process, the research is considering ICT use in more detail within three specific contexts where ICT is extensively and increasingly used in society: • the work context, • the home context and • the community context In practice the thesis will consist of a collection of articles considering different aspects of ICT use in support of action and interaction in the three contexts, covering the following: • identifying actors and other forces driving the virtualization process, • describing the process of how ICT becomes integrated or institutionalized in the infrastructures that surround us and then starts structuring our actions • describing how humans through ICT use accept, domesticate and finally integrate ICT into every aspect of life: work, home and even body • exploring the effects of the institutionalization and integration of ICT on the quality of life in the three contexts