Exploring (un)sustainable growth of digital technologies in the home

Abstract

HCI and Ubicomp research often centres around the support of humansinteracting with digital technology. Despite this obvious focus, thereseems to be less work on understanding how these digital technologiescan lead to growth in use, dependence, and influence practices ineveryday life. In this paper we discuss how digital technologies havebeen, and continue to be, adopted in domestic practices-and how thegrowth of interactions with various ecologies of digital technologiescan lead to growth in use and energy consumption. We further thediscussion within ICT4S and sustainable HCI on how to promote researchthat encourages sustainability as a core concern-socially, economically,and ecologically-emphasising that defining limits to growth areimportant when trying to affect change in sustainable directions. Weecho calls for more significant sustainability research from HCI, andset out some avenues of design for moving in this direction.