The Role of Technology in the Construction of Social Reality in Everyday Life: Robot Vacuum Cleaner Transforms Daily Life of House Cleaning

Abstract

In everyday life, individuals meaning their experiences and interactions within a social activity and organise their social lives. Language plays an important role as a tool in the process of objectifying individuals’ experiences and constructing reality. Individuals begin the process of interpreting symbols and meanings are generated through subject-object interaction. User comments on online shopping platforms, which are frequently preferred these days, reflect the interactions and experiences of individuals with products and contain traces of everyday life. This study investigates the position of robot vacuum cleaner technology in everyday life and its effect on the construction of social reality. The role of the robot vacuum cleaner in changing the perception, way of thinking and doing housework habits on house cleaning is investigated. Based on the experiences of users, user comments about robot vacuum cleaners on the Trendyol platform are used as a data source. The data is analysed by content analysis. The method discusses the social reality reflected by robot vacuum cleaners in everyday life in a theoretical framework. As a result of the research, the experiences made meaningful by society through robot vacuum cleaners have gone through an intersubjective journey and the reality that society constructs for house cleaning in everyday life has been discovered as an objective representation. The interactions of society with each other and with technology affect the process of interpreting and meaning the product, as well as user behaviours, social norms, routines and mundanity.

Presenters

Ayşe Dalyanoğlu
Lecturer, Industrial Design, Gebze Technical University, Kocaeli, Turkey

Ozge Merzali Celikoglu
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Designed Objects

KEYWORDS

User Comment, User Experience, Everyday Life, Social Construction Of Reality