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16 November 2004

Inhabiting the networked home

It's been now more than twenty years that "ordinary" people have had Personal Computers at home, and about eight years that they have connected them to the Internet. A very significant portion of leisure time has been spent gaming on the PC; writing and distributing text; looking at, and editing, digital pictures and videos; listening to stored or streamed music and radio; exchanging music and videos; planning travels; learning; practising hobbies. Also a large part of the social and civic life has gradually relied on the connected PC. People keep in touch with family, friends and community by e-mail, IM or web blogs and sites. Political participation, relationship with the administration, financial and insurance management have also been moved to the Internet. Over the years, more digital technologies have been connected to the home PC: printers, scanners, more PCs, wired networks, digital cameras, digital music recorders and players, DVD. And the digital technologization of the home is still very much in progress: more recent entries are DVRs, wireless networks, VoIP and Media stations.

However, if we were to listen to industry press releases, technology analysts, journalists commentators, and innovators, we would be led to believe that most homes are networked or soon will (in the most developed countries) and that residents of these homes are passive consumers who use the technologies that are marketed to them in the way designers meant them to be used. In reality, the process of «technically» networking the home and of «socially» inhabiting it is largely more complex and highly intertwined. 

One the threads I'm follolling is the analysis of innovation in the domestic sphere. My objective is to qualify what "inhabiting networked homes" means as of November 2004. I approach the issue from an adoption perspective, trying to answer the questions "How many homes are networked homes?" and "How networked are they?" proposing a taxonomy of networked homes. Whenever research exists, I complement the adoption analysis with a usage perspective that tries to characterise the way people actually use the technologies. The underlying assumption is that adoption and usage best reflect the meaning that these innovations have acquired for people.

What could an operational definition of what a "networked home" is be?
A networked home is a household who has adopted the Internet as one of the mediators of many of its everyday activities. In terms of equipment, its basic configuration consists of at least a PC and an Internet connection. More advanced configurations include a broadband Internet connection and a home network, potentially wireless, connecting two or more PCs. In terms of usage, the networked home mediates typical household activities, such as fostering social relations; research; planning and preparing trips or purchases; managing finances and administration; leisure time alone and together. The level of equipment and the type of usage patterns are highly correlated, with greater intensity of Internet use in household with broadband Internet access.

Posted at 10:58 AM in Usage at Home | Permalink

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