Introduction

It would be difficult to overestimate the place of technology in our daily lives. From the moment we wake in the morning (assisted by alarm clocks) to trips to work or school on trains, buses, cars and bikes (where we use laptops or coal-diggers or barcode scanners, before enjoying an increasingly mediatized leisure time), technological objects structure and shape every aspect of our existence. Indeed, simply trying to imagine human existence without the material objects that extend our reach, augment our eyesight, aid our strength, create our clothing or cook our food is a near impossibility. An indication of the centrality of the non-human world to our everyday lives is found in the often-noted – if slightly misleading – attempt to define the human species as the ‘tool-making animal’. ¹