Everyday Struggels with Technology

Technology has not only become an integral part of people’s lives but also of people’s everyday struggles. Struggles with technology are complex in nature; we tend to not only struggle with their basic functions but also with how they make us feel. During the course of our life we tend to master and struggle with technology in different ways. This struggle has been studied in relation to media literacy (Livingstone, 2004),
to domestication theory (Silverstone et al. 1992), or in everyday life (Bakardjieva, 2005). This work enhances these lines of studies by exploring everyday struggles with technology from a life stage (Erikson, 1959) point of view. In particular, we explore what are common struggles people have with technology and what are distinct struggles in relation to life stages. In conclusion, we will present our findings by outlining what we call ‘technological biographies’. Those technological biographies are valuable analytical categories in order to shed light on people’s everyday struggles with technology.