Endnotes

1. Satchell, C. and Dourish, P. Beyond the user: Use and non-use in HCI. Proc.

OZCHI 2009. 9–16.

2. Wyatt, S. Non-users also matter: The construction of users and non-users of the Internet. In How Users Matter: The Co-construction of Users and Technology. N.

Oudshoorn and T. Pinch, eds. MI T Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003, 67–79.

3. A full list of position papers is available at http://nonuse.jedbrubaker.com

4. Fischer, C. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. UC Press, Oakland, CA, 1994.

5. Rich, A. Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. In Blood, Bread, and Poetry. Norton, New York, 1986.

6. For example, http://thenewinquiry.com/
essays/thedisconnectionists/
7. Uotinen, J. Involvement in (the
information) society—the Joensuu
Community Resource Centre Netcafé.

Ne w Media & Society 5, 3 (2003), 335–356.

8. Harmon, E. and Mazmanian, M. Stories of the smartphone in everyday discourse: Conflict, tension and instability. Proc. CHI 2013. 1051–1060.

 

Eric P. S. Baumer is a research associate at Cornell University. His research involves designing technologies to foster critical and reflective thinking, as well as leveraging the interplay among use(rs) and non-use(rs) to expose normative beliefs around the roles technology does and should play in society. → [e-mail]

Jenna Burrell is a professor in the School of Information at UC Berkeley. Her interests include theories of materiality, user agency, transnationalism, post-colonial relations, digital representation, and especially the appropriation of IC Ts by individuals and groups on the African continent. → [e-mail]

Morgan G. Ames is a postdoctoral scholar at UC Irvine. She has examined the cultural history and the on-the-ground “use” (and non-use) of the One Laptop Per Child project. She has also explored non-use and techno-resistant identities among families of diverse socioeconomic levels and among college students. → [e-mail]

Jed R. Brubaker is a Ph.D. candidate at UC Irvine. He has studied non-use resulting from technology abandonment as well as the death of social media users, and is researching the relationships between individuals and systems in the co-performance of “use.” → [e-mail]

Paul Dourish is a member of the CHI Academy and professor of Informatics at UC Irvine, with courtesy appointments in computer science and anthropology. His research focuses on understanding information technology as a site of social and cultural production. → [e-mail]

In a related vein, non-use can also provide new ways to account for the rhetoric of technological development.

Some in the workshop pointed to the framing, common in many Silicon Valley narratives, of (information and communication) technology as a panacea that can solve virtually any problem and improve quality of life for virtually any person. Non-use could provide a counter-narrative to that technological panacea—that there are times when not using a technology may in fact be desirable.

Some recent commentary has drawn attention to this point, arguing that voluntary technological disconnection often is done largely in the service of “recharging” to enable more effective subsequent reconnection [ 6].

In many ways, the differences between these two narratives are reminiscent of the “digital imperative” [ 7] that technological adoption and proliferation is not only desirable but unavoidable. Studying non-use can problematize this imperative, calling into question the fundamental premise of both the value and the unavoidability of such technologies.

In some ways, this critique may also apply to the narrative of the digital divide, that unequal distribution of technology creates haves and have-nots, and that the best way of ameliorating such inequalities is greater technological saturation and penetration. What if, however, those who do not use a technology do so not from a lack of opportunity but rather from a lack of desire? What if certain individuals or groups prefer to stay on the far side of the digital divide?

These tensions bring us back to
the matter of agency in non-use. In
line with much current research,
the workshop papers and discussion
tended to emphasize contexts
where technology use represented
a path of least resistance that non-
users consciously and intentionally
negotiated. Involuntary non-use
was much less present but is just as
important: As Wyatt exclaimed,
“There is still a digital divide,
people!” Perhaps placing these
rich accounts of negotiated and
considered non-use, often as a
response to a state of too much
connectivity, in conversation with
forms of involuntary exclusion
from technology use can help to
progress and evolve the conversation
beyond current ways of framing or
understanding digital divides.

Finally, what is the symptomatology of non-use? That is, of what underlying condition is non-use symptomatic? This question might be approached in (at least) two ways. First, we can ask why various forms of non-use occur as social practices. Here, one might argue that cycles of non-use and overuse [ 8] are symptomatic of a broader lack of ability to control the information flows in which one is involved. Second, we might ask of what underlying academic condition is our scholarly interest in non-use symptomatic? In some ways, this is a question about why this workshop was held and its implications for the field more broadly.

CONCLUSION

Ultimately, a number of workshop participants wondered aloud whether we were discussing the same phenomenon under the banner of non-use or rather a collection of disparate phenomena. Are these different cases of non-use so far-flung that they should be treated independently, or can they be seen as separate instances of a broader category of sociotechnical practice?

On the one hand, meditating Buddhists, the visually impaired, the digitally excluded, the Amish, and disconnecting teens may each have (perhaps drastically) disparate motivations for and practices of non-use. On the other hand, we suggest that the analytic concepts described above—communitarian aspects, rhetorical analyses, ecological approaches, and so on—suggest that work in each of these areas can benefit from mutual engagement. Such work may find common ground in developing a critical language that problematizes use, users, and the inevitability of technology spread. Furthermore, the questions raised earlier—about agency, the digital imperative, the constitution of “the user,” and others—suggest paths for future contributions. Studying non-use in its various forms can help us reconsider foundational questions about what we mean when we talk about use and users in studying human-computer interaction and sociotechnical systems.

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DOI: 10.1145/2723667 COPYRIGHT HELD BY AUTHORS. PUBLICATION RIGHTS LICENSED TO ACM. $15.00