The information society

Technology in the home

Issues

• changing nature of the home
• increasing use of electronics and digital signal processing
• increasing ability to control
• ever widening array of entertainment and services
• against a background of social change

The home

• demise of the extended family
• replacement with the nuclear family
• demise of marriages
• rise of
  • single parent families
  • sequential monogamy
  • non-traditional relationships

Manufacturing

• more information technology in devices
• more information technology in processes
• more use of IT in marketing

Chips in everything

• washing machine
• dishwasher
• radios (portable, alarm, etc.)
• telephone (answering machine, fax, etc)
• television (VCR, satellite, etc.)
• Hi-Fi
• Walkman and/or Discman
• games and toys
• microwave ovens
• fridge and freezer

Domestic information

• increase in control
• choice of when to watch television programmes and films
• increased capacity to communicate
• shopping
• telephone call for meals
• tele-shopping
• banking
• access to databases

HOBS

• Bank of Scotland
• Home and Office Banking
• launched in 1983 with Nottingham Building Society
• low overheads
• assumed access to network of cas dispensers in England
• targetted at wealthy customers
• re-focussed on SMEs
• never given any figures -- allegedly profitable

Telephone

• international direct dialling
• itemised billing
• calling line identification
• voice mail
• competitive market in telephone handsets
• competition in service provision

• answering machines
• domestic fax machines
• videophones
• multiple telephones (extensions and additional lines)

Domestic ISDN

• voice
• data
• pictures

By end of 1994 66 million lines in USA had ISDN capability. All UK lines now have ISDN capability.

But is there a demand?

Mobile telephony

• radio
• analogue
  • Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT)
  • Total Access Communication System (TACS)
• digital
  • Groupe Speciale Mobile (GSM)
  • DCS-1800
• cordless telecommunications
• satellite systems
• combinations

Television

• monochrome and mono-channel
• multiple channels
• colour picture
• cable television
• digital sound
• Direct Satellite Broadcasting (DSB)
• High Definition Television (HDTV)
• Video on Demand (VoD)
• Satellite television

Video-on-demand

• virtual video cassette recorder
• virtual video hire shop
• you select the video
• you select when to watch
• easy for suppliers to reach niche markets
• distance independent tariffs

Camcorder

• it is only real when we see it on television
• no longer the Kodak box Brownie or even Polaroid
• now also digital “still” cameras
• recording events
  • holidays
  • weddings
• add-ons to PCs

Domestic music

• sheet music
• pianorola
• Edison’s gramophone
• Hi-Fi (high fidelity)
• Hi-Fi
• vinyl (78, 33 1/3, 45 rpm)
• reel-to-reel tape decks
• compact cassette
• 8-track cartridge
• 'racked' Hi-Fi systems
• In Car Entertainment (ICE)
• Compact Disc (CD)
• Digital Audio Tape (DAT)
• Digital Compact Cassette versus Mini-Disc

Interactive CD

• educational value
• e.g., Shakespearean play, text, analysis and video image of production
• entertainment value

Home computing

• SoHo (Small office, Home office) market
• entertainment centre
• home shopping
• home banking

Multimedia

• interactive text and voice and image
• education and entertainment
• computer or set-top box?

We [AT&T]believe today’s cable industry gatekeeping model would stifle commercial and creative potential if it were recreated in the new interactive multimedia world. We believe it’s a threat to the very survival of the consumer electronics industry.

Robert Kavner, Executive Vice President, American Telephone & Telegraph

Tele-activites

• Telebanking and insurance
• Teleshopping (catalogues and Virtual Reality shopping malls)
• Tele-education

Shopping

• shifting location
• local and city centre
• out-of-town
• resurgence of catalogue shopping
• experiments with tele-shopping

Enjoyment of shopping

Attitudes

• focus on price
• demand for good and improving service

• analysis of customers
• rewards for loyalty
• relationship marketing

Teleculture

• protectionists (22%) do not want to be called, but are happy to buy over the telephone
• functionals (15%) do not enjoy but are confident using the telephone, mainly at work
• telephobes (16%) not confident and do not like to receive customer service calls
• telephiles (16%) confident, positive and happy to receive calls

However, in the long run, some form of home shopping seems inevitable. Even Henley’s own relatively conservative forecasts indicate that over 5 million homes will receive cable by the year 200 (with a further 4 million on satellite).

Henley Centre

Environmental control

• central heating
• air conditioning
• lighting
• cooking

Video games

• started off as table tennis
• spectrum and BBC micro-computers
• Sega and Nintendo oligopoly
• importance of quality of video image
• games on CD
• virtual reality

Future of games

• dial-up games and games channels on TV
• violence (now graded in UK)
• UK video games market worth more than £700 millions per annum
• Sega moving into virtual reality theme parks (Trocadero, London)

Addiction

• programming
• games

The relationship with the machine can take over to the point where individuals are better able and prefer to talk to computers than to people. They will log on almost before talking to anyone.

Pearce (1983)

Bright young men of disheveled appearance, often with sunken glowing eyes, can be seen sitting at computer consoles, their arms tensed and waiting to fire their fingers, already poised to strike, at the buttons and keys on which their attention seems to be riveted as a gambler’s on the rolling dice. When not so transfixed, they often sit a tables strewn with computer printouts over which they pore like possessed students of a cabalistic text. They work until they nearly drop, twenty, thirty hours ar a time. Their food, if they arrange it, is brought to them: coffee, Cokes, sandwiches. If possible, they sleep near the computer. But only for a few hours- then back to the console or the printouts.

Joseph Weizenbaum (1976)

• a particular personality type (introverted)
• excessive amounts of time spent using and thinking about computers
• computing undertaken for its intrinsic merit
• programming, often without a definite, useful end-product
• programs are unstructured, poorly written and ill-documented
• enjoyment of debugging and refining programs
• need for power and control over computers
• computer interaction as an escape from other relationships
• lack of desire to participate in previous activities

Dependents

• introversion
• defence by detachment from persons
• time spent peacefully in solitariness
• awkward on social occasions (role-playing)
• recovers well-being in solitude
• militantly self-sufficient
• pride in mind and knowledge
• pursuit of perennial wisdom and abstractions
• defence by intellectualism
• refuses to be tied down to the necessities of existence

Examples

• male early forties, married, no children (28 hours per week at home, 40 hours ar work)
• male, late thirties, married, two children (25 hours at home, 45 at work)
• male, early thirties, married, no children (15 hours at home, 30 hours at work)
• male, early thirties, married two children ( 25 hours ar home, 10 hours at work
• male, early forties, married, no children (40 hours at home, 25 at work)

Changing images of the home

• end of upper class households with servants
• end of extended families even of families
• introduction of technology
• intrusion of mass produced goods and products
• move to customised products and services

Conclusions

• increasing use of chips in consumer products
• chips allow more choice and more control
• increased bandwidth to home adds services
• changes in manufacturing increase the choice available without increasing the price

Readings

United Kingdom statistics
• Social Trends
• Regional Trends
• General Household Survey

Heap, Nick et al. (1995) "Information Technology and Society"

• A gendered socio-technical construction: the smart house Ann-Jorunn Berg
• Access and inequality Ray Thomas
• Conceptualizing Home Computing Graham Murdock
• Patterns of owenrship of IT devices in the home Hughie Mackay