Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

New technologies are radically changing the way that families connect with one another: we can text our teenagers from work, eat dinner with far-away parents via video link, and instantly upload and share photos after a family day out. Whether we are bridging time or distance, and whether we are enhancing our closest relationships or strengthening the bonds of extended family, as computer technologies alter the communication landscape, they in turn are changing the way we conduct and experience family life. This state of the art volume explores the impact of new communication systems on how families interact – how they share their lives and routines, engage in social touch, and negotiate being together or being apart – by considering a range of different family relationships that shape the nature of communication. Composed of three sections, the first looks at what is often the core of a ‘family’, the couple, to understand the impact of technology on couple relationships, communication, and feelings of closeness. The second section studies immediate families that have expanded beyond just the individual or couple to include children. Here, the emphasis is on connection for communication, coordination, and play. The third section moves beyond the immediate family to explore connections between extended, distributed family members. This includes connections between adult children and their parents, grandparents and grandchildren, and adult siblings. Here family members have grown older, moved away from ‘home’, and forged new families. Researchers, designers and developers of new communication technologies will find this volume invaluable. Connecting Families: The Impact of New Communication Technologies on Domestic Life brings together the most up-to-date studies to help in understanding how new communication technologies shape – and are shaped by – family life, and offers inspiration and guidance for design by making clear what families need and value from technological systems.

Communication -- Technological innovations -- Social aspects. --- Computers and families. --- Internet and families. --- Technological innovations. --- Communication --- Internet and families --- Computers and families --- Sociology & Social History --- Engineering & Applied Sciences --- Social Sciences --- Social Change --- Computer Science --- Technological innovations --- Social aspects --- Social aspects. --- Computers and family --- Families and computers --- Families and the Internet --- Internet and family --- Communication, Primitive --- Mass communication --- Computer science. --- Software engineering. --- User interfaces (Computer systems). --- Computers and civilization. --- Computer Science. --- Computers and Society. --- User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction. --- Software Engineering. --- Families --- Sociology --- Informatics --- Science --- Computer software engineering --- Engineering --- Civilization and computers --- Civilization --- Interfaces, User (Computer systems) --- Human-machine systems --- Human-computer interaction

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Telecommunication technology --- Mass communications --- Videoconferencing --- Teams in the workplace --- Visioconférences --- Equipes de travail --- Congresses --- Audio-visual aids --- Congrès --- Aides audiovisuelle --- Visioconférences --- Congrès

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

An examination of why paper continues to fill our offices and a proposal for better coordination of the paper and digital worlds. Over the past thirty years, many people have proclaimed the imminent arrival of the paperless office. Yet even the World Wide Web, which allows almost any computer to read and display another computer's documents, has increased the amount of printing done. The use of e-mail in an organization causes an average 40 percent increase in paper consumption. In The Myth of the Paperless Office, Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper use the study of paper as a way to understand the work that people do and the reasons they do it the way they do. Using the tools of ethnography and cognitive psychology, they look at paper use from the level of the individual up to that of organizational culture. Central to Sellen and Harper's investigation is the concept of "affordances"—the activities that an object allows, or affords. The physical properties of paper (its being thin, light, porous, opaque, and flexible) afford the human actions of grasping, carrying, folding, writing, and so on. The concept of affordance allows them to compare the affordances of paper with those of existing digital devices. They can then ask what kinds of devices or systems would make new kinds of activities possible or better support current activities. The authors argue that paper will continue to play an important role in office life. Rather than pursue the ideal of the paperless office, we should work toward a future in which paper and electronic document tools work in concert and organizational processes make optimal use of both.