| purposes of humans. It often has unintended and unexpected effects on humans and can be used for purposes other than originally planned. While technology cannot exist without humans, one can equally well argue that humans cannot exist without technology. This relationship touches on many fundamental questions of anthropology, ontology, and epistemology. Due to the complexity of the field of technology and human interaction, we cannot hope to do it justice in a single volume. The chapters in this current book are therefore focused on a sub-sector, namely the area of information and communication technology. They discuss different topics and angles on the way in which humans interact with ICT. The book reflects a variety of approaches and problems that researchers have investigated in this area. It is meant to be multi-disciplinary and demonstrate the richness of these studies. The reference disciplines that the authors draw upon reflect this multi- and trans-disciplinary nature. They include information systems, computer science, sociology, philosophy, gender studies, and even theology.
This book will provide the reader with a wide range of interesting and novel approaches to the relationship between technology and humans. It can be used for teaching as well as for research purposes, and it will contain insights that are of relevance for social and organisational use of ICT. |
