ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the research that has identified a fourfold classification of the way that people absorb objects into their households. It argues that typology artificially separates out processes that are in practice mutually constituted. The chapter explores the complex ways that personal computers (PCs) are both absorbed into, and transform the time, spaces of the home. It connects the home to the wider space of the local neighbourhood. The chapter presents popular concerns about the perceived impact of the home PC, an indoor technology, on children's use of 'public' outdoor space. It reflects on the notion of everyday practice and its role in shaping the way that Information and communications technology (ICT) emerges for different households. The chapter shows the spatial organisation of the PC within the home is intimately bound up with issues of how and by whom the computer is taken possession of. It explores the complex relationships between ICT use and domestic life around the screen.
