[Air-L] Literature wanted: what does it feel like to use a computer?

[David Brake]

I presume there is literature out there taking a phenomenological  
view of what using a computer feels like but I am not sure where to  
start looking. I hope to use it to buttress a hunch I have about why  
people seem to have trouble in managing public vs private space  
online. My feeling is that its because typing stuff into a computer  
just doesnt feel like you're addressing a large crowd at that moment  
- it feels like you are talking to yourself (unless you are  
addressing it to particular named other people who you can then  
visualise). One can make a similar point about the long life of blog  
postings. They feel conversational, not like having something  
published and indexed.

Anyway given this example I hope you can see the kind of literature  
which might help here. Any ideas? If not of texts directly about the  
experience of using a computer then perhaps just the best literature  
to apply to approach the subject generally. Schutz?

---
David Brake, Doctoral Student in Media and Communications, London  
School of Economics & Political Science
<http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/study/ 
mPhilPhDMediaAndCommunications.htm>
Also see http://davidbrake.org/ (home page), http://blog.org/  
(personal weblog) and http://get.to/lseblog (academic groupblog)
Author of Dealing With E-Mail - <http://davidbrake.org/ 
dealingwithemail/>
callto://DavidBrake (Skype.com's Instant Messenger and net phone)



Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/secretariat/legal/disclaimer.htm