Breaking up is hard to do: family perspectives on the future of the home PC
✍ Scribed by DAVID M. FROHLICH; SUSAN DRAY; AMY SILVERMAN
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2001
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 398 KB
- Volume
- 54
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1071-5819
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Industry analysts currently disagree about the future of domestic computing. Some predict increasing sales of home PCs while others predict the break-up of the PC into a variety of information appliances. In this paper, we report a study of home PC use which illuminates this issue from the perspective of existing PC-owning families. Eleven PC-owning families from the Boston area were interviewed at home about their current PC use, their attitudes to computers and the location of technology in their homes. We found that the general-purpose nature of the home PC o!ers something for everybody in the household, and quickly becomes an established part of family life. Indeed, it was so popular in the households we visited that it had resulted in widespread competition for PC time, and had caused parents to worry about how best to control PC and internet access and in#uence. These behaviours and concerns led adults and children to express quite di!erent preferences for relocating their computing experience around the house. However in both cases the needs were for better access to multifunctional extensions of the main PC. The implications of these "ndings for home PC and appliance evolution are discussed.
📜 SIMILAR VOLUMES