Everyday interaction - an empirical study of a mobile practice

When the forefront of IT development and use moves beyond the offices and board rooms and out into the everyday life of people, the sole focus on organizational impact and workplace change has to be challenged. The use of IT have not only moved in this conceptual way, but we as users also continuously move technology with us, mobile technology. Mobile use is not framed by a set number of defined use situations or limited to the rational reasoning of businesses such as efficiency and effectiveness. Rather everyday mobile use extends physical as well as social contexts. In this paper we focus on the everyday use of laptops among a group of undergraduate students. The students live their everyday interaction with mobile phones, laptops, ipods, etc. If we are to understand this use as a lived everyday practice, rather than snapshots of use situations, we need new models for conceptualizing this use. Based on an ethnographic study of the students’ use this paper presents a tentative model of the use, as well as suggesting the concept of continuous interaction processes.