Mediated Interaction: Social Informatics in the Era of Ubiquitous Computing

Social Informatics (SI), as originally envisioned by Rob Kling and his collaborators, is a body of research that examines “the social aspects of computerization. ” Based on this definition and a particular notion of the “social, ” great emphasis is put in SI on the interaction of information technologies with their institutional and cultural contexts. This focus has for several decades directed research in SI largely towards organizational and social contexts, providing valuable insights into computing practices in organizations, communities, and societies – for instance, in the notion of “computerization movement. ” The shift in the last decade towards more pervasive and ubiquitous use of computers, however, seems to call for complementary approaches that adopt a micro-level perspective, focusing on the individual as a key actor in the computerization of society. For this to happen, research in SI needs to be informed by ideas, findings, and theories in such areas as cognitive science, social psychology, human-computer interaction, and Artificial Intelligence. This shift of focus is in accord with a parallel trend in social science that puts cognition at the heart of human interaction and sociality, allowing accounts of social processes that breach the traditional socialpsychological divide. While heedful of the role of technologies in these processes, these accounts do not typically give enough weight to technological artifacts as integrated extensions of the human mind. SI can contribute to this trend by focusing on computer-mediated interactions that are on the rise in terms of both frequency and intensity. This paper is a preliminary examination of the theoretical issues involved in this shift.