Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Rethinking technology on the boundaries of life and work

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Technology is often seen as seamless, or making (life/work) boundaries go away. Ubicomp designs for that and for seamlessness in general. However, there may be better ways of understanding boundaries, as to design technologies in the space of changing work/life boundaries, which is the topic of this special issue. This paper makes a theoretical argument to insist that boundaries are not fixed, neither can or should they be made away with technologically, through seamless technologies. Based on this argument, it discusses various presumed technology-mediated boundaries of work and home, life, etc., as they can be found in the Ubicomp, CSCW and HCI literature: The ways in which work and work technologies are stereotypically connected to effectiveness and hard labor, and non-work technologies to fun and enjoyment; the ways in which technologies move back and forth between mediating work activity and non-work; the role of place and time boundaries in relation to the ability to work any time, anywhere and the metaphors used to address these boundaries; and the perceived boundaries of private versus public, and the new boundaries created by technologies in and across our lives and work. Using an empirical case, the paper offers an alternative use of boundaries as resources to be activated and used in design. It suggests that we need to more carefully design technologies that provide seamfulness on these specific and dynamic boundaries.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Barth F (1969) Ethnic groups and boundaries. Little Brown, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bellotti V, Cambridge S, Hoy K, Shih PC, Handalian LR, Han K, Carroll JM (2014) Towards community-centered support for peer-to-peer service exchange: rethinking the timebanking metaphor. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 2975–2984

  3. Bertelsen O, Bødker S (2002) Interaction through multi-artifacts. In: Bagnara S, Pozzi S, Rizzo A, Wright P (eds) ECCE 11: cognition, culture and design 11th European conference on cognitive ergonomics, Instituto di scienze e technologie della cognizione consiglio nazionale delle ricerche, Rome, pp 103–111

  4. Bertelsen OW, Bødker S (1999) Cooperation in massively distributed information spaces. In: Bødker S, Kyng M, Schmidt K (eds) Proceedings of the 6th European conference on computer supported cooperative work. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Copenhagen, pp 1–17

  5. Birnholtz J, Hancock J, Smith M, Reynolds L (2012) Understanding unavailability in a world of constant connection. Interactions 19(5):32–35

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Bjerrum E, Bødker S (2003) Knowledge sharing in the”new office”—possibility or problem? In: Kuutti K, Karsten E, Fitzpatrick G, Dourish P, Schmidt K (eds) Proceedings of the 8th European conference on computer supported cooperative work, 14–18 Sept 2003, Helsinki, Finland, pp 199–218

  7. Bjerrum E, Nielsen O (2003) Bliver man lidt småsær af at have sit eget kontor? Jyllands-Postens Erhvervsklub (In Danish: Does having your own office make you slightly mad?)

  8. Bødker S (2006) When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges. In: ACM international conference proceeding series, vol 189. Proceedings of the 4th NordiCHI, ACM, pp 1–8

  9. Bødker S, Christiansen, E (2004) Designing for ephemerality and prototypicality. In: Proceedings of the DIS 2004, ACM, pp 255–260

  10. Bødker S, Christiansen E (2006) Computer support for social awareness in flexible work. J CSCW 15(1):1–28

    Google Scholar 

  11. Bødker S, Christiansen E (2012) Poetry in motion–appropriation of the world of Apps. In: Proceedings of the ECCE 2012

  12. Bødker S, Christiansen E (2002) Lost and found in flexibility. IRIS, New Delhi

    Google Scholar 

  13. Bødker S, Grönvall E (2013) Calendars: time coordination and overview in families and beyond. ECSCW 2013:61–80

    Google Scholar 

  14. Bødker S, Klokmose CN (2011) The human-artifact model—an activity theoretical approach to artifact ecologies. Hum-Comput Inter 26(4):315–371

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Bødker S, Klokmose CN (2012) Dynamics in artifact ecologies. In: Proceedings of the 7th Nordic conference on human-computer interaction: making sense through design (NordiCHI ‘12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 448–457

  16. Bødker S, Petersen AB (2007) Seeds of cross-media production. J Comput Support Cooper Work 16:539–566

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Bødker S, Polli, AM (2014) Between initial familiarity and future use: A case of collocated collaborative writing. In: Proceedings of the COOP 2014, pp 137–154

  18. Bødker S, Polli, AM, Korn M, Klokmose CN (2014) Participatory IT in semi-public spaces. In: Proceedings of the 7th Nordic conference on human-computer interaction (NordiCHI’14)

  19. Bødker S, Christiansen E, Ehn P, Markussen R, Mogensen P, Trigg R (1991) Computers in Context. Report from the AT-project in progress. In: Proceedings of the NES/SAM on Arbejdets Udvikling, pp 153–158

  20. Bødker S, Kristensen JF, Nielsen C, Sperschneider W (2003) Technology for boundaries. In: Proceedings of GROUP’03, ACM Press, pp 311–320

  21. Bohøj M, Borchorst NG, Bouvin NO, Bødker S, Zander PO (2010) Timeline collaboration. In: Proceedings of the of the 2010 SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, ACM Press, pp 523–532

  22. Bødker S, Korsgaard H, Saad-Sulonen J (in press) ‘A farmer, a place and at least 20 members’: the development of artifact ecologies in volunteer-based communities. In: Proceedings of the of CSCW 2016, ACM Press

  23. Borchorst NG, Bødker S (2011) “You probably shouldn’t give them too much information”—supporting citizen-government collaboration. In: Proceedings of the of the 2011 European conference on computer supported cooperative work, Springer London, pp 173–192

  24. Borchorst NG, Bødker S, Zander PO (2009) The boundaries of participatory citizenship. In: Proceedings of the of the 2009 European conference on computer supported cooperative work, Springer London, p. 1–20

  25. Brown B, O’Hara K (2003) Place as a practical concern of mobile workers. Environ Plan A 35(9):1565–1587

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Chalmers M, Galani A (2004) Seamful interweaving: heterogeneity in the theory and design of interactive systems. In: Proceedings of the 5th conference on designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques. DIS ‘04. ACM, New York, NY, pp 243–252

  27. Christensen LR, Grönvall E. (2011) Challenges and opportunities for collaborative technologies for home care work. In: Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 24–28 Sept 2011, Springer, pp 61–80

  28. Clement A, Wagner I (1995) Fragmented exchange: disarticulation and the need for regionalized communication spaces. In: Proceedings of the of the 1995 European conference on computer-supported cooperative work, Kluwer, pp 33–49

  29. Dourish P (2001) Where the action is: the foundations of embodied interaction. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  30. Engeström Y (2005) Knotworking to create collaborative intentionality capital in fluid organizational fields. Adv Interdiscip Stud Work Teams 11:307–336

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Engeström Y (2007) From communities of practice to mycorrhizae. In: Hughes J, Jewson N, Unwin L (eds) Communities of practice: Critical perspectives. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  32. Greenbaum J (2010) Situations and interactions: digital café squatting and participatory design. In: Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Participatory Design Conference (PDC ‘10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 243–246

  33. Grönvall E, Marti P, Pollini A, Rullo A, Bertelsen OW (2005) Palpable time for heterogeneous care communities. In: Proceedings of the 4th decennial conference on critical computing: between sense and sensibility, ACM Press, pp 149–152

  34. Harrison A, Wheeler P, Whitehead C (2004) The distributed workplace: sustainable work environments. Spon Press, London

  35. Hochschild AR (1997) The time bind: when work becomes home and home becomes work. Metropolitan Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  36. Huysman M, Wulf V (2005) The role of information technology in building and sustaining the relational base of communities. Inf Soc 21(2):81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Tio tankar om tid. Brombergs (In Swedish: Ten thoughts about time)

  38. Kristoffersen S, Ljungberg F (1998) MobiCom: networking dispersed groups. Interact Comput 10:45–65

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Kvande E (2009) Work-life balance for fathers in globalized knowledge work. Some insights from the norwegian context. Gend Work Organ 16(1):58–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Leshed G, Håkansson M, Kaye J (2014) “Our life is the farm and farming is our life”: home-work coordination in organic farm families. In: Proceedings of the of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing (CSCW ‘14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 487–498

  41. Lee C (2005) Between chaos and routine: boundary negotiating artifacts in collaboration. In: Proceedings of the of the 2005 European conference on computer supported cooperative work, Springer Netherlands, pp 387–406

  42. Luff P, Heath C (1998) Mobility in Collaboration. In: Poltrock S, Grudin J (eds) Proceedings of the of the 1998 ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work, ACM Press, pp 305–314

  43. Lynggard AB (2012) Homing Interactions, Aarhus School of Architecture, Unpublished PhD Aarhus School of Architecture

  44. Malhotra A, Van Alstyne M (2014) The dark side of the sharing economy … and how to lighten it. CACM 57(11):24–27

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Orr J (1996) Talking about machines: an ethnography of a modern job. Cornell University Press, Ithaca

    Google Scholar 

  46. Pagter JI, Pedersen MG (2008) A sense of security in pervasive computing-is the light on when the refrigerator door is closed? LNCS. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 383–388

    Google Scholar 

  47. Palen L, Bødker S (2007) Don’t get emotional. In: Peter C, Beale R (eds) Affect and emotion in human-computer interaction. LNCS, vol. 4868. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 12–22

    Google Scholar 

  48. Palen L, Salzman M, Youngs E (2001) Discovery and integration of mobile communications in everyday life. Personal Ubiquitous Comput J 5(2):109–122

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Petersen MG, Lynggaard AB, Krogh PG, Winther IW (2010) Tactics for homing in mobile life: a fieldwalk study of extremely mobile people. In: Proceedings of the of the 12th international conference on Human computer interaction with mobile devices and services (MobileHCI ‘10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 265–274

  50. Polli AM, Korn M, Klokmose CN (2013) Local area artworks: collaborative art interpretation on-site. In: Proceedings of the of the 2013 ACM conference on Pervasive and ubiquitous computing adjunct publication (UbiComp ‘13 Adjunct). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 79–82

  51. Rossitto R, Eklundh KS (2007) Managing work at several places: a case of project work in a nomadic group of students. In: Proceedings of the of the 14th European conference on Cognitive ergonomics: invent! explore! (ECCE ‘07). ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 45-51

  52. Sennett R (1998) The corrosion of character. The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. W.W. Norton and Co, New York London

    Google Scholar 

  53. Sohn T, Lee L, Zhang S, Dearman D, Truong K (2012) An examination of how households share and coordinate the completion of errands. In: Proceedings of the of the ACM 2012 conference on computer supported cooperative work (CSCW ‘12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 729-738

  54. Star SL, Griesemer JR (1989) Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39. Soc Stud Sci 19(3):387–420

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Star SL (2010) This is not a boundary object: reflections on the origin of a concept. Sci Technol Human Values 35(5):601–617

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Su NM, Mark G (2008) Designing for nomadic work. In: Proceedings of the of the 7th ACM conference on Designing interactive systems (DIS ‘08). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 305–314

  57. Whittaker S, Frohlich D, Daly-Jones O (1994) Informal workplace communication: what is it like and how might we support it? In: Proceedings of the of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems. ACM Press, pp 208

  58. Wiberg M, Ljungberg F (1999) Exploring the vision of anytime, anywhere in the context of mobile work. In: Malhotra Y (ed) Knowledge management and virtual organizations. Idea Group Publishing, Brandon

    Google Scholar 

  59. Williams S, Williams L (2005) Space invaders: the negotiation of teenage boundaries through the mobile phone. Sociol Rev 53(2):314–331

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

I thank my many collaborators of past and more recent papers and case studies. I thank the editors/workshop organizers for making it possible for me to revitalize some of my old ideas, and the reviewers for their careful comments. The work is sponsored by the Aarhus University interdisciplinary center PIT.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, and Center for Participatory IT, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Susanne Bødker

Authors
  1. Susanne Bødker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Susanne Bødker.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bødker, S. Rethinking technology on the boundaries of life and work. Pers Ubiquit Comput 20, 533–544 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-016-0933-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-016-0933-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation