Browsing by Author "Horppila, Henriikka"

Goals: The goal of this study was to find out what kind of attitudes people have about technologies at home and their relationships to the essence of home. Based on previous research in the field, the relationship between technology and home appears to be interesting. The meaning and definition of home is often perceived through its social dimension, people living in the home and their relationships, but on the other hand the material dimension is often involved: appliances, certain technical gadgets and machines. Today's homes are filling up with a wide range of different technical applications and objects, but at the same time the technology filled life is considered as challenging, even threatening. In this study, the aim is to find out how people describe their relationship to technologies of home, technology's different meanings at home and development in the future. The theoretical framework of this study is built around understanding technology as a part of human behaviour, skills and processes. Methods: The research in this study was performed with the narrative method, by collecting short written narratives on the topic, from a group of people selected for this study. The data collection was executed through email. The sample consisted of 15 narratives, which were analysed with themeing and content analysis. Results and conclusions: The meanings of technologies at home could be classified under three main categories: 1) the easiness of controlling everyday life; 2) pursuing oneself and 3) the enjoyability and fluidity of everyday life. The problems stemming from the existence and development of technology were categorised under internal and external challenges. The internal challenges comprised technology's impacts to oneself and control of life, whilst the external challenges included home technology's impacts to environment and the essence of home. The multi-dimensional essence of home technology was reflected in the narratives on the other through different meanings of technology, relationships to technology and use areas of technology. In the context of home a large amount of emotions and wishes were attached to the desired nature and development avenues of technology. The results of this study show that technology can't be discussed as an entity in isolation of human beings, but human beings are always attached to it with their knowledge, skills and emotions.