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Non-users also matter: The construction of users and non-users of the

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On Not Driuing a Car

I have never owned a car. I am, however, very well qualiÍied, having
passed trvo driving tests. The first took place during a snowstorm in
Toronto a few months before my seventeenth birthday. I think I passed
only because I successfully navigated the course without skidding. I
needed two attempts when I was 25 to passthe British test, in a more com-
plex rnachine with a manual transmission. I have never driven rruch. My
parents sold their car soon after I passedmy test in Toronto. I have driven
only t'wicesince I passedthe British test in 1984.
I simultaneously inhabit the same world as car drivers and a different
one. My life is affected by cars: as a pedestrian and a cyclist,I see them as
a threat to my health and well-being, and as a user of public transport I
find that they slow me down. The reach of public transportation con-
strains where I can live and where I can visit. My knowledge of London is
very much based on public transport routes convenient to where I lived
and worked. The London underground map is a better and more useful
representation of my experience than a topographical one. In 1999,
when I was driven from London to Amsterdam. I was fascinated, to the
amusement of my driver friend, by.the alien world of motorways, petrol
stations, motorway services,and drive-on ferries.
Not driving is regarded by many as a deviant and bizarre choice. One of
my friends thinks it reflects a failure to grow up on my part, that "real
adults drive cars."rThere are, of course, advantagesto not driving-it saves
money, time, and stress;it reduces one's chances of being killed or killing
others; and, in these post-Rio, post-Montreal days of greater envilon-
mental awareness,it provides a tremendous feeling of selÊrighteousness.
Occasionally,policy makers accept that non-car-usersalso have rights and
interests which neecl to be taken into account in the formulation of
6B Wyatt Non-User.s Also Mattn 69

transport, industrial, and land-use policies. Non-car-usersare increasingly The March 2000 European summit is only one of many examples of
rejecting the land claims made by the producers and users of cars who politicians' and policy makers' assuming that accessis the problem. From
want to turn ever more land over to roads and parking lots. Since 1995 that perspective, making Internet accesscheaper and providing more
and the growth of protests against cars and against road building around education and training are among the obvious solutions. It is assumed
the world, militant non-drivers are becoming more active in asserting the that once these barriers to use are overcome, people will embrace the
desirability of car-free spaces (Reclaim the Streetsl 2001).'? technology wholeheartedly. Access to the Internet is seen as necessarily
I have presented this autobiographical information in order to make go.d, and more as necessarilybetter (though, as with champagne ancl
two analytic points regarding non-Lrseof technology.3First, the existence chocolate, moderation is advised). politicians hope that people will use
of individuals who choose not to own a car even though they could afford their knowledge of and from the Internet to create wealth and employ-
to do so, raisesquestions about the explanations put forward for non-use. ment and to become active citizens, but maybe they will use it to look at
Second, and related to the first point, voluntary rejection of a technology pornography or play games. The most popular online activities in 2001
raises the question of whether non-use of technology alwaysand neces- were e-mail and finding informarion about hobbies, rravel, music, books,
sarily involves inequality and deprivation. In other words, is the policy films, news, and health (Pew Internet project 2002). perhaps sonre peo-
assumption that all non-users of a particular technology wish to become ple will not use the Internet at all, and perhaps a lack of Internet access
users appropriate? does not have to be a source of inequality and disadvantage.a
The assurnption that non-use or lack of accessis a deficiency to be The contriburors ro this volume are, quite righrly, keen to emphasize
remedied underlies mlrch policy discussion about the Internet. For the importance of users in technological development. As oudshoorn
example, the meeting of European Union heads oI government held in and Pinch argue in the introduction, users are not simply passiverecipi-
Lisbon in March 2000 was dubbed the "dot-com summit," reflecting the ents of technologyi they are active and important actors in shaping and
realization by heads of state of the importance of information and com- negotiating meanings of technology, which is significant both for under-
munication technology generally and the Internet in particular f'or the standing design processesand the relationship between the identities of
economic well-being of Europe. The aim of the summit was to discuss technologies and their users. users have been neglected for too long.5
how to increaseemployment by promoting enterprise,competition, and Includi'g them helps to overcome the problems associated with
a dynamic, knowledge-basedeconomy. To this end, the leaders agreed to approaches to scienceand technology studies and innovation studies that
reduce the cost of Internet accessto US levelswithin 3 years,to connect emphasizethe roles of powerful actors such as scientisrs,engineers, politi-
all schools to the Internet by 2001, and to train teachers in its use cians, and financiers in producing technologies. But restoring the dialec-
(Tisdall 2000). Everyone is clearly understood as a potential user of the tic between production and consumption by establishing the importance
Internet. Accessto the technology is seen as necessarilydesirable,and of use and users may introduce another problem: by focusing on use, we
increasing accessis the policy challenge to be met in order to realize the implicitly accept the promises of technology and the capitalist relations of
economic potential of the technology.Concern about the socialinequal- its production. Users are increasingly introduced into technology studies
'digital
ities that may arise if the divide' is allowed to grow was expressed to counterbalance the errrphasison producers found in much of the lit-
by some heads of state. \Mlile such concern about social exclusion is erature, but all categoriesinvolve exclusions. Therefore, users should be
laudable, it is nonetheless based on the assumption that Internet "haves" seen in relation to another, even lessvisible grollp, that of non-users.6
will be in a better socio-economic position than Internet "have-nots."As To what extent is not driving a car analogous to not using the Internet?
Neice (2002, 67) argues, "it is simply presumed by those advocating the "superhighway" metaphors specifically and travel rnetaphors
generally
elimination of the "digital divide" that having Internet accessis always have played an important role in discussionsof the Internet. T'his chap-
better than lacking it." The reasons why privale cornpanies selling ter is premised on tl-reidea that there is something to be gained from
Internet-related products and serviceswish to promote the Internet as exploring the limits of such metaphors through an examination of those
a universal rnedium are selÊevident;the reasons why policy makers who choose nor ro travel down particular technological roads. All
support them are lessclear. metaphors and analogies have limits. perhaps it would also be valuable to
70 W"')att Non-UsersAIsoMatt.er 71

pursue the similarities between the telephone and the Internet, insofar ership of consumer goods such as motor vehicles,televisions,and refrig-
as both are communication media. Nonetheless, I shall deploy the car erators, all of which were once owned by very small percentagesof house-
analogy in this chapter because it is a better illustration of the use./non- holds but are now much more widely diffused. Globally, however, the
use dichotorny. Also, both cars and the Internet have been loaded with catching-up effect is lessobvious, and measurement of ownership of con-
cultural significance. The car was a paradigm caseof a symbol of moder- sumer goods per se saysnothing about inequalities in the type and qual-
nity in the tlventieth century. To many people, cars reflect wealth, power, ity of goods possessed.Moreoveq the economic prosperiry enjoyed in
virility, and freedom. The Internet promises many of the same attributes OECD countries during the 1960sand the early 1970sis not likely to be
on an even larger scale,with its possibility of global reach. The symbolic replicated.
vah.reof having Internet accessis often presented as a sign of inclusion in Coliecting and interpreting data about Internet use is not straishtfor-
a high-technology future. ward. Defining a host, ascertaining its location, and identi$zing users and
their demographic characteristics are all fraught with difficulry. Jordan
Usersof the Internet (2001) demonstrateshow estimatesof the sizeand growth of the Internet
are often motivatecl by commercial needs and are not well informed by
The dramatic increase in the number of Internet hosts since the devel- reliable sampling methods. Although I am critical of the data, some are
opment of the World Wide Web tempts Ínany conmentators to conclude presented below both becausesuch data have had practical significance
that this rate of growth will continue, or even accelerate.TIt is assumed in policy discussionsand because,despite the limitations, some patterns
the Internet is following a path taken by many other successful tech- can be discerned.
nologies before it. Economists refer to this path as "trickle down," mean- Graphs with numbers of hosts, conuections, or users along the vertical
ing the processwhereby technologies which are initially expensive to use axis and with time along the horizontal axis often illustrate news reports
become cheaper, simultaneously providing more people with the bene- and policy documents about the growth of the Internet which forecast
fits of the technology and enlarging the market. In the case of the exponential growth, even though the rate of growth has been quite sta-
Internet, the early users were a small number of academics who used ble over a long period. Despite the growth, differences between counrries
computers paid for largely from university budgets or defense contracts. remain stark. In mid 1998, industrialize6l6sun11is5-\/ith less than l5
Academics are now i1 the minorify as firms, governments, administradve percent of the world's population-accounted for more than 88 percent
bodies, political parties,voluntary groups, and individuals at home all use of Internet users. The United States,with less than 5 percenr of the
the Internet for a huge variery of applications and purposes. world's people, had more than one-fourth of the world's Internet nsers
According to the trickle-down view, there may be inequalities of access (UNDP 1999).This picture has worsenedslightly,accorclingto 2002 data
and use during the early stagesofa technology,but these disappear,or are available from Nua.8 Even within the European Union there is a divide.
at leasr much reduced, as the technology becomes more widely diffused. In the Scandinavian countries and tl-reNetherlands rnore than one-half
Internet enthusiastsoften claim that connection is a global Process,albeit of households have home Internet access,whereas in Spain and France
an uneven one. This is not unique to the Internet. Similar claims can be less than one-fourth of households do (Altevie 2001). Global and
found in much literature and in policy statementsabout industrialization regional digital divides remain.
and modernization more generally. Individuals, regions, and nations will The stereo$pical user remains a young, white, university-educated
"catch up"; those not connected now will be or should be connected soon. man. However, closer examination of the available data indicates some
This is the real annihilation of space by tirne: the assumption that the weakening of this stereotl?e, at least in the United States.Gender differ-
entire world sharesa single time line of development, with some groups ences have shown the most dramatic reduction since the development of
ahead of others but with everyone on the same path. the World Wide Web. Georgia Têchnical University has been conducting
The evidence for the catching-up assumption, and ultimately a rnore online surveysof Intenret users approximately every 6 months since
even distribution of access, is furnished-at least within so-called January 1994.'gInthe first survey,only 5 percent of userswere women. By
advanced industrial societies-by time series of statisticsrelating to own- October 1998 (the last such surveyplaced in the public realm), women
72 Wlatt Non-UsersAko Mattn 73

represerltedjust over one-third of users worldwide. The Pew Internet The surveysreferred to ir.rthe preceding section are all concerned to
Project (2001) claims that indeed half of US hrternet users are women. demonstrate growth, and of course growth has been impressive accord-
In Europe, over 40 percent of Internet users in Swedenand the United ing to all available indicators, including the numbers of hosts, domain
Kingdom are women, but in most other countries the percentage of names, and users.Nearly all of the academic and policy literature focuses
women Lrsersis well under 40 (Nua 2002b). There are differencesin pat- on how to increasethe number of users,and takesthe additional step of
terns of use, men spending more time on line and logging on more fre- assuming that once a user an individuai will alwaysbe a user. For exam-
quently ( CyberAtlas 2002a) ple, Hoffman and Novak (1998: 9) write: "Ensure accessand use will fol-
The size of the divide 'ín^yvary between countries, reflecting national low [and] accesstranslates into usage." Moreover, Hoffman and Novak
traditions of difference and exclusion, but social divisions in Internet conclude that "programs that encourage home compltter ownership . . .
accesscontinue to exist. As the most advanceduser of the Internet, the and the adoption of inexpensivedevicesthat enable Internet accessover
United Statesmay offer some interesting lessonsfor the rest of the world. the television should be aggressively pursued, especially for African
Manuel Castells(2001) usesUS data as a paradigm casefor the rest of the Americans" (ibid.).
world. Castells examines the ways in which differences betlveen social I shall leave aside for the moment the question of indirect use of the
groups have changed and concludes that differences are narrowing, Internet (e.g., people making a query in a shop or agency where an
especially gender differences. Castellsis optimistic about the disappear- employee uses the Internet to provide the information needed). Despite
ance of all digital divides, not only that based on gender but also those the huge global inequalities in Internet accessreferrecl to in the previous
based on ethniciry income, and education. But the sources he cites are section, I shall focus here on the evidence for non-use in some highly
less sanguine. The US Census Bureau conducted large-scalesurveys (of industrialized countries where non-use could be a choice. There are some
approximately 48,000 households) on behalf of the National Tele- data available which suggest that providing accessmay not be the sure,
communications and Information Administration in 1995, 1998, 1999, simple solution it appears.'0Cyber Dialogue, an Internet research consul-
and 2000. The analysisof these surveyshighlights what the authors call a tancy based in the United States,has found evidence of a slowdown in
"persisting digital divide." They note substantial increases in Internet Internet growth (Cyber Dialogue 2000). They claim that the rare of
access,but then they state: "Nonet.heless,a digital divide remains or has growth is slowing down overall and that there is evidence of an absolute
expar-rdedslightly in some cases,even while Internet accessand com- decline in the number of users aged 18 to 29. In part, they attribute non-
puter ownership are rising rapidly for almost all groups. For example, the use to cost: some people cannot afford a computer and Internet access.
August 2000 data show that noticeable divides still exist between those They also claim that approximately one-third of all US adults simplv do
with different levelsof income and education, different racial and ethnic not believe they need the Internet and what it offers.l' Even more signifi-
groups, old and young, single and dual-parent families, and those with cant is the growth in the number of adults who have tried the Interner and
and without disabilities."(NTIA 2000, summarv) then stopped using it, only one-third of whorn expected they might use it
again at some point in the future. In early 1997,Cyber Dialogue estirnated
Non-Users of the Internet there were 9.4 million former users; by September 1999, they calculare
that there are as many as 27.7 million former users. In 2001, the Pew
Will the cyberworld come to dominate the physical world to anything like Internet Project found that half of all the adults in the United Statesdo
the same extent as cars and the associatedsocio-technical system?Is it not have Internet accessand 57 percent of those non-Llsersare not iltter-
possible to turn off the machine? Or will everyone's choices come to be ested in getting it (Pew Internet Project 2001). A sur-veyconducted in rhe
shaped by the Internet, just as many people's transport choices are influ- United Kingdom in 2000 found that one-third of British adults has no
enced by the automobile whether or not they own one? The shift of retail intention of ever using the Internet (Ward 2000).
outlets from town centers to or-tt-oÊtownshopping centers makes life Based on tlvo national random telephone surveys conducted in the
more diffrcult for non-drivers. Similarly, will the disappearanceof offline United States,JamesKatz and Philip Aspclen (1998) slrggestrhere are par-
information sourceslimit people's abiliry to participate in public life? terns to Internet non-use.Their analysisof "Internet dropouts" was a side
74 Wyatt Non-LTsers
AIsoMatter 75

effect of some research about barriers to Internet use in the United Other new technologies indicate patterns of use and non-use. Leung
States.They candidly admit they included the category of "former user" and Wei (1999) examine the use and non-useof mobile phones in Hong
in their surveysonly for logical completeness.They were surprised to dis- Kong. Mobile phones have a much longer history than the Internet as a
cover in October 1995 that former users and current users eaclt consumer technology. Leung and Wei identify the factors that are irnpor-
accounted for about B percent of the sample. They did another survey in tant in determining the take-up of rnobile telephony, although they do
November 1996, by which time the proportion of current users had more not distingnish betweer-rthose people who have never used a mobile
than doubled to 19 percent of the sample. The proportion of former phone and those who have stopped using them. Age, incorne, gender,
users had also increased,butonly to 11 percent. People who stop nsing and education all tvork in expected ways. However, age dominates-if
the Internet are poorer and less well-educated. People who are intro- one is older (unspecified),having more money and more education does
ducecl to the Internet by family and friends are more likely to "drop out" not make much difference. Income levels are declining in signiÍicance,
than those who are selÊtaught or those who receive formal training at thus providing sorne support for the effectiveness of "trickle down."
work or school. Teenagersare more likely to give up than people over 20. h-rtensiryof use of mass media is not significant, but belonging to social
The reasonsfor "dropping out" vary by age. Older people are more likely groups that use mobile phones is. Equally unsurprising is the finding that
to complain about costs and diÍficulties of usage; younger people are non-users perceive the technology to be unnecessarybecause they have
nrore likely to quit becauseof loss of accessor lack of interest. I\atz and an alternative or because they find mobile phones either complex to
Aspden (1998) draw attention to this important category of non-users, choose and use or intrusive. Leung and Wei's results confirm a growing
though their explanation for non-use remains very functionalist, focusing gap berween the communication rich and the communication poor, with
on issuesof cost and access.Their use of the term "drop out" is rather users of mobile phones more likely to possessa range of alternative and
pejorative, suggesting again that use is to be preferred to non-use. As complernentary forms of telecommunication (pagers, answering
Ronald Kline argues in this volume, viewing resistance to technology machines,etc.), whereasnon-usershad only one reasonablealtemative.
from a functionalist perspectivereinforces the promoters' interpretations Leung and Wei accept the premise that having multiple communication
of success.In his analysisof resistanceto the telephone and electrification devices is intrinsically good, whereas having only one adequate commu-
in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century Kline nication device is a sign of deprivation.
defines resistancein the terms of contemporaneous actors and demon- Leung and Wei's results are not very surprising: people do not use
strateshow resistanceitself can induce socio-technicalchange. mobile phones if they have alternatives, find them intrusive, and/or
The Cyber Dialogue data and the results of Katz and Aspden need to think them expensive. By extension, maybe some people decline ro use
be treated with caution as former users can, of course, become active the Internet because they have alternative sources of information and
users again at a later date. Nonetheless, they are interesting becausethey forms of communication that are appropriate to their needs, or because
call into question the assumption of never-ending growth. They also sug- they think it is cumbersome and expensive.
gest that public accessprovision, quality of informatiol-r and training
remain important policy issues.If the results about teenagers are repli- Rc-Constructing the Categories of Use and Non-Use
cated elsewhere on a large scale, certain assumptions about the rate of
exponential growth have to be re-examined. Turkle (1995) draws on The question of "dropouts" may be a transient issue if all the non-users
Erikson's theories of adolescent identity development to explain some of given that label eventually return to the Internet, perhaps when their
her observations of the behavior of young people in multi-user domains income rises or when they regain accessby means of a televisionor a
(MUDs).r'She suggeststhat MUDs provide a safeenvironment in which rnobile phone. In any event,irl the United Statesalone there are rnillions
adolescents and young adults can experimeut with different forrns of of former users about whom very little is known. They may be a source of
interaction and relationships. Maybe the Interne t is one of many things important information for sr.rbsequentdevelopments. Even within the
with which teenagersexperiment only to abandon or use in moderation rhetoric of increasing access.it is irnportant to know why such people
as they become older. leave and whether anything should be done to lure then-rback. Internet
76 Wyatt Non-UsasAko Matter 77

service and content providers as well as policy makers might have much months?" This allows for an enormous range in frequency of use. The
to learn from this group. notion of Internet usageshould be treated in a rather more nuanced way,
There are different categoriesof non-use. As Bauer (1995: 14-15) distinguishing between those who spend almost everywaking hour onlirre
points out, there is a difference between passive "avoidance behavior" and those who check their e-mail once a week. The CyberAtlas data now
and active resistance.AJso, care should be taken to distinguish behveen distinguishes between those with accessto the Internet and those who
non-use of a technological system (such as the Internet) as a whole and actually use it at least once a month. In 2002, it was estimated that there
non-use of specificaspectsof it (Miles andThomas 1995:25&-257).In a were 149 million Internet users in the United States but just over two-
preliminary taxonomy of non-use, we (Wyatt, Thomas, and Terranova thirds of thern had used it within the past month (CyberAtlas 2002b). (I
2002: 36) identify four types of non-users. The first group consists of occasionally use taxis and accept iifts from friends; while this does leave
"resisters"who have never used the Internet becausethey d<l not want to. me open to the accusation of hypocrisy,it does not make me a car user in
The second group consists of "rejecters" who have stopped using the any meaningful sense.) Frequency of use and the range of senices used
Internet voluntarily, perhaps because they find it boring or expensive or are both important to considerwhen concepttralizingInternet use.There
because they have perfectly adequate alternative sources of information remains a great deal of interpretive flexibility about what problems the
and comrnunication. The third group consistsof people who have never Internet is solving and for which social groups.
used the Internet because they cannot get accessfor a variety ofreasons; The Internet "user" should be conceptualizedalong a continuum, with
they can be considered socially and technically "excluded." The fourth degrees and forms of participation that can change. Different modalities
group consistsof people who have effectively been "expelled" frorn the of use should be understood in terrns of different tlpes of users,but also
Internet; they have stopped using it involuntarily, either because of cost in relation to different temporal and social trajectories. The latter
or because they have lost institutional access. include changes in lifestyle determined by processes such as agins,
The policy implications are different for the different groups. It might changing jobs, educational history and geographical mobility. Inrernet
be appropriate to develop new servicesin <lrder to attract the resistersand use encompassesnot only different types of use, but also the possibility of
the rejecters. If Internet accessis seen as inherently desirable, this might reversalsand changes of direction in the individual and collective pat-
be accompanied by the provision of measuresto facilitate access.Another terns of use. In addition to the usual demographic variables,details about
possibiliry is to accept that some people will never use the Internet. This the frequency and nature of use help to construct a,fuller image of the
could lead either to a focus on existing users or (moving away from the multipliciry of usesand users of the Internet. Many authors have pointed
perspectiveof the suppliers and promoters who see non-use only as a gap to the waysin which producers and designers of technology draw on the
to be filled) to policies that would make alternatives to the Internet avail- "I-methodology," using themselves as the paradigm of a user (see the
able to people who want or need them. The accessissuesidentified at the chapter by Lindsay in this volume), or the singular, undifferentiated user,
Etrropean Union meeting in March 1999 related to cost, skill, and loca- or users in the plural as a homogeneous group. Including the variety of
tion are more relevant for the third and fourth groups (the excluded and non-users also helps to open the way for subtler description and analysis
the expelled who would like access).At the very least, it is important to oI the multiplicity of users.
distinguish between "have nots" (the excluded and the expelled) and
"want nots" (the resistersand the rejecters). Incorporating Non-Use into Technolog Studies
Once one has made the step of including "former nser," as well as "cur-
rent user" and "never a user," it is not too much more of a leap to begin In this chapter, I have presented some of the data about use and non-use
to take apart the notion of "user."What exactly does it mean to be a user? of the Internet, not in order to provide a definitive snapshot of its current
How is it defined? Is it possible to distinguish between non-usersand non- level of diffusion but rather to begin to explore the category of non-use
owners?In a well-establishedUK survey conducted by the NOP Research and what it means for science and technology studies. Much more
Group (1999), estimatesfor total numbers of users are based on answers researchis needed to understand the variety ofreasons people resistand
to the question "Have you personally used the Internet in the last rwelve reject technology. Analyzing users is important, but by focusing on users
 78 Wlatt Non-UsersAko Matter 79

and producers we run the risk of accepting a worldview in which adop- Kline (this volume), Kline and Pinch (1996), and Bijker (1995a) have
tion of new technology is the norm. vividly demonstrated the important roles played by, respecrively,resisters
Cars are not simply wheels, engines, and steel; they exist within a socio- of the telephone and electrification in the rural United Statesin the early
technical infrastructure that includes test centers for drivers and vehicles, twentieth century anti-car farmers in the us in the same period, ar-rdanti-
motorways,garages,the petrochemical industry drive-in movies, and out- cyclistsin Europe in the late nineteenth century. Kline and pinch explore
oÊtown shopping centers. The more people use cars, the greater the the significance of rural inhabitants of the US, who initially opposed,the
infrastructure to support them, and the lessening of car-Íiee space. use of motorcars and who even after accepting its presence used the car
Similarly, the Internet is not just web content. It includes many other for a variety of agricultural purposes.Kline and pinch demonstrate the sig-
applications as well as computers, telecommunication links, routers, nificance of this for subsequent designs of both cars and roads. Bijker
servers,educators, and cyber cafés. The more people use the Internet, examines the ways in which anti-cycling groups influenced the design of
the rnore pressure there is to develop user-friendly interfaces and to pro- bicycles,contributing to a safer conÍiguration around which bicycleseven-
vide more accessequipment, greater bandwidth, and faster switching and tually stabilized. These and other histories of technologies demonstrare
routing. But there is a paradox here: as the network expands and how resistanceand rejection play an important shaping role; however, it
becomes more useful, it may also become more difficuit to create well- seemspossible to allow this only with the saferyof hindsight when tech-
working communities. It is thus important to analyze the Internet not nologies have been stabilized and normalized.
only along a single dimension or characteristic but as a large technical The use of information and communication technology (or any other
system(Mayntz,and Hughes 1988; Summerton 1994; Coutard 1999). In technology) by individuals, organizations,and nations is taken as rhe
this chapter, I have argued that it is essentialto consider the role of non- norm' and non-use is perceived as a sign of a deficiency to be remedied
users in the development of large technical systemssuch as the Internet or as a need to be fulfilled. The assumption is that accessto technolog-y
rather than focusing only on the changing relationships between system is necessarily desirable, and the question to be addressecris how to
builders and users. increase access.Sometimes the answer involves investment in infrastruc-
Acknowledging the existence of non-users accentuates certain ture, public education to overcome ignorance and fear, or training and
methodological problems for analyzing socio-technical change. At the standardization to improve easeof use. Informed, voluntary rejection of
beginning of the chapter,I highlighted the importance of incorporaring technologyis not mentioned. This invisibilityreflecrsthe conrinued dom-
users into technology studies as a way of avoiding the traps associated inance of the acceptance of the virtues of technological progress, not
with following only the powerful actors. Another way of avoiding such only among policy makers but also wirhin the STS community.
traps is to take non-users and former users seriously as relevant social
groups, as actors who might influence the shape of the world. Elsewhere Acknouledgnmts
in this volume,Jessikavan Kammen explores user involvement in design
and Ronald Kline analyzesthe waysin which people who resisted the use The work on which this is based was supported by the Virtual Sociery?
of the telephone and the spread of electrification affected subsequent Programme of the uK Economic and social Researchco'ncil under
design choices. Maybe it is also possible to explore the possibilities for grant no' L132251050. I am grateful to Tiziana Terranova and Graham
including non-users in design processes.For example, would mobile Thomas, my colleagues on the project, for many stimuiating discussions
phones make such irritating noises if non-users had been involved in and for the fact that neither of them drives a car. I am also grateful to the
their design? There are obvious methodological problems to be over- following for comments on some of the ideas in this chapter: Brian
come here as non-users may be particularly difficult to locate. Non-users Balmer, Flis Henwood, Helen Kennedy, Tim
Jordan, Ian Miles, Lera
may not be a very cohesive group as people may have very different rea- Miles, Nod Miller, Dave O'Reilly, Hans Radder, Els Rommes, and paul
sons for not using the Internet. This invisible group is another instance Rosen. In nearly all cases,comments were provided via the Internet.
of the difficulties posed by an over-literal interpretation of the dictum to
"follow the actors."
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