INTERACTIONS.ACM.ORG MARCH–APRIL 2015 INTERACTIONS 55 raised the example of machines used to milk cows on industrial dairy farms. Would we or could we ever see the cows as users? Just as we recognize that non-use may be non-volitional, we must also consider the possibility of non-volitional use.

RETHINKING THE USER

Cases like these point to opportunities for studies of technology non-use in its various forms to serve as a useful analytic lever for unpacking and deconstructing the notion of user. Early HCI work, Padma Chirumamilla points out, originally crafted the user as a way of describing a wished-for, but as of then nonexistent, audience. If we recognize the user as aspirational but incomplete, how might we conceptualize the various forms of non-user? And if our practice-based approach renders the terms user and non-user equally unsatisfying, what alternatives might we consider?

Our discussions suggested that user often masks one or more other potentially more descriptive terms, such as fan, player, client, audience, patient, customer, employee, hacker, prosumer, conscript, administrator, and so on. Not only does each of these terms provide an opportunity to rethink the specificities of the user, it also allows for considering more fully what we mean by non-use in different contexts. For some of these terms, though, the non prefix seems ill-suited. Non-hackers Non-players? Perhaps, despite its issues, the term user does retain at least some utility in certain contexts.

Similarly, one might ask: When does non-use even become a question? Sociologically speaking, non-use obtains visibility or salience when the diffusion of a technology crosses some threshold of ubiquity, at which point non-use becomes the exception and thus notably conspicuous. For example, Claude Fischer describes both when and how a telephone, or a lack thereof, became an indicator of household poverty [ 4]. Gregg compares this threshold to Adrienne Rich’s notion of compulsory heterosexuality [ 5] in considering ramifications of the default assumption of technology use and users.

This leads us to question when and why non-use becomes interesting to us as researchers. One aspect deals with the complexity of the technology and the forms of literacy necessary to operate it. General-

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purpose technologies intended for non-specialists may give rise to more interesting cases of non-use than technologies that are used as part of a professional trade and require specialist knowledge. For example, would you find it more interesting to discover that a colleague was a hammer non-user or a Zamboni non-user? In general, why in the case of certain technologies does it make less sense to talk about non-use?

BEYOND INDIVIDUALS

Such questions move us beyond discussions of non-user as an individual (identity or practice) to exploring the sociality of non-use. Indeed, communitarian approaches can sometimes help upend traditional assumptions about certain groups’ technology use. For example, Rachel Magee et al. describe how many people assume a “digital natives” narrative about teen technology use. In contrast, their work takes an ecological approach to show how teens’ non/use does not hinge on individual technologies but rather is often positioned in relation to a complex array of devices and systems. Conversely, Ems’s work shows how the Amish do not eschew all technology but rather negotiate as a community how the non/use of various technologies intersects with their religious values and cultural norms.

In many ways, the terms user and non-user imply a rational, coherent, and firmly bounded self that may not align well with these sociocultural considerations. It was noted that most

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of the workshop participants pursued a standard pattern of actor-centric study, for example, by conducting interviews with, or surveys of, non-users. Plaut offered another way of approaching the methodological challenges of studying a non-phenomenon by tracing the many manifestations of a particular technology of non-use, such as the Swear Jar.

This move to transcend analysis
of individuals also draws attention to
some broader concerns. For example,
when asked to list the technologies
in their home, very few (first world)
householders will mention electricity,
despite its pervasiveness. As a point
of contrast, Jenna Burrell notes that
in her fieldwork in Ghana, informants
would routinely point to any device
plugged into an electrical outlet, from
televisions and stereos to refrigerators
and kitchen blenders, as instances
of technology. Would it be possible,
then, to be a non-user of electricity?
It might be technically feasible to
live “off the grid” and not rely on
municipal sources of electricity,
but being a complete non-user of
any item that required electricity
in manufacture, transportation,
or even use seems quite difficult. A
similar line of reasoning was raised
about the possibility or feasibility
of being a non-user of the economy.
Such questions move beyond thinking
about the non-user as an individual
and instead take into account a larger
sociotechnical milieu. I M A
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