ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to explore how the experience of using ICTs at work comes to influence the ways adults use them at home. From other research we already know that the impact of the workplace on family and household life varies with the nature and status of a job (Berg et al. 2003), but to what extent and in what ways is this also true for use of technology? Certainly Peter Sawchuk, whom we quote above, believes that the potential impact of work in structuring the modes of engagement with ICTs, and the forms of learning associated with them, is huge. But do our data substantiate such an assertion and are the influences of work-based experiences only limited to working class populations, as he would appear to suggest? Interestingly, given the importance of the workplace as a context of adults’ computer use, it is noticeable that ‘while several studies adopting qualitative approaches have been published on the use of computers in the home, surprisingly little qualitative research has appeared on their use in the workplace’ (Lupton and Noble 2002:9). Our aim in this chapter is to redress that imbalance by drawing extensively on our own in-depth interview data to explore these issues.
