The society is changing from an industrial society to an information society, which has implication on peoples living conditions. Phenomena like virtual reality, expert systems, computerized network and so forth are discussed and analyzed in different research areas and in daily life. The reason for the attention paid to these phenomena could be an insecurity of the implications that a more frequent use of information technology will have on human life. Is the information society creating and aiming for a better world to live in? Is it possible to know that?

With a focus on the implications of the continuos compterization this paper is related to peoples relationships with information technology and how these relationships are understood. With the assumption that peoples experiences of information technology is of importance for how this technology is used, evaluated and designed, the central notion in this paper is those experiences.

This focus can be regarded in the light of recent years development of information technology which has created new relationships between human and information technology. One example is Virtual Communities where it is possible to virtualize aspects of social relationships with the purpose to strengthen, develop and/or substitute traditional forms of communities. Another is visualization techniques made possible by information technology which tend to blurr the distinction between representations and reality. In order to understand the implications of these new relationships peoples experiences of information technology becomes important.

Research that focuses and examines the relationships between human and technology, for most part understand the relationship between human and information technology as a use-relationship. By focusing on peoples experiences of information technology I believe new relationships can be analyzed that can add to our understanding the implications that virtualization has on society.

Responsible: Mikael Jakobsson
Last updated: 10 Nov 1999
URL: http://www.informatik.umu.se/nlrg/being.html