Acting With Technology

How the Amish have adopted certain digital tools in ways that allow them to work and live according to their own value system.The Amish are famous for their disconnection from the modern world and all its devices. But, as Lindsay Ems shows in Virtually Amish, Old Order Amish today are selectively engaging with digital technology. The Amish need digital tools to participate in the economy―websites for ecommerce, for example, cell phones for communication on the road―but they have developed strategies for making limited use of these tools while still living and working according to the values of their community. The way they do this, Ems suggests, holds lessons for all of us about resisting the negative forces of what has been called “high-tech capitalism.” Ems shows how the Amish do not allow technology to drive their behavior; instead, they actively configure their sociotechnical world to align with their values and protect their community’s autonomy. Drawing on extensive ethnographi

The computerization of the economy -- and everyday life -- has transformed the division of labor between humans and machines, shifting many people to work that is hidden,

What happens in an established practice or work setting when a novel artifact or tool for doing work changes the familiar work routines? Any unexpected event, or change, or technological innovation cr

In the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, employees of Internet startups took risks--left well-paying jobs for the chance of striking it rich through stock options (only to end up unemployed a year later

Why do people who perform largely the same type of work make different technology choices in the workplace? An automotive design engineer working in India, for example, finds advanced information and

Much attention has been paid in recent years to the emergence of "Internetactivism," but scholars and pundits disagree about whether online political activity isdifferent in kind from more traditional

Software development would seem to be a quintessential example of today'sInternet-enabled "knowledge work"--a global profession not bound by the constraints ofgeography. In Coding Places, Yuri Takhtey

Every workday we wrestle with cumbersome and unintuitive technologies. Our responseis usually "That's just the way it is." Even technology designers and workplace managersbelieve that certain technolo

The urban youth frequenting the Internet cafes of Accra, Ghana, who are decidedly notmembers of their country's elite, use the Internet largely as a way to orchestrate encounters acrossdistance and am

In the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, employees of Internet startups tookrisks--left well-paying jobs for the chance of striking it rich through stock options (only to endup unemployed a year later),

Much attention has been paid in recent years to the emergence of "Internet activism,"but scholars and pundits disagree about whether online political activity is different in kind frommore traditional

Activity theory holds that the human mind is the product of our interaction with people and artifacts in the context of everyday activity. Acting with Technology makes the case for activity theory as

The shift in the practice of human-computer interaction (HCI) Design from user-centered to context-based design marks a significant change in focus. With context-based design, designers start not wit

In Tracing Genres through Organizations, Clay Spinuzzi examines the everyday improvisations by workers who deal with designed information and shows how understanding this impromptu creation can improv