Sisyphus and the social construction of computer user problems

Abstract. This article argues that one way of understanding the role of technical developments in computers is to consider them as solutions looking for problems, rather than as solutions to pre-existing problems. This reversal of popular opinion is premised on an analysis of the way that boundaries are drawn around the domain of the 'technical' such that computer users can be kept at a distance and their interpretation of computer user problems 'managed' more or less successfully by those purporting to resolve such problems. The result is that users are faced with a labour of Sisyphus: just when they thought they had resolved their problems another technical 'advance' suddenly appears and generates another problem. An awareness of the social framework for such developments may facilitate a clearer appreciation of the role of the problem solver in the construction of the problem itself.