Technology in everyday life: conceptual queries

The transformation of informal daily life settings into settings that are universally fitted with all kinds of technical installations and tools and networks and machinery is continuing in an accelerated fashion. The social sciences are clearly at a loss as to what this means in terms of changes in the structure of action and awareness of people undergoing these processes. Recent theorizing on these matters is characterized by remarkable conceptual diversity. Presents a thesis concerning the inability of all such approaches to come to grips conceptually with problems that arise from technisation. (CP)