The work to make a home network work

  • Authors:

  • Rebecca E. Grinter;W. Keith Edwards;Mark W. Newman;Nicolas Ducheneaut

  • Affiliations:

  • GVU Center, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology;GVU Center, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology;Palo Alto Research Center;Palo Alto Research Center

  • Venue:
  • ECSCW'05 Proceedings of the ninth conference on European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

Recently, households have begun to adopt networking technologies to interconnect devices within the home. Yet little is known about the consequences for households of setting up and living with these complex networks, nor the impact of such technologies on the routines of the home. In this paper, we report findings from an empirical study of households containing complex networks of computer and audio/visual technologies. Our study finds that home networks require significant household effort not just to coordinate their use, but also their set up and maintenance. We also show how the coordination around networking has to be worked into the routines of the home and the householders.