Phd-afhandling trykklar pdf

expressive conversations (e.g. if the children feel miserable) to conversations with a
clearly instrumental content (e.g. daily planning). However, whether instrumental or
expressive in content, each call or text-message reaffirms the close relations
between family members. Therefore, tele-mediated communication (especially by
mobile phone) contributes to the continuous flow of mediated and non-mediated
interactions that keeps intimate relations between family members alive. The use of
ICT mediates a feeling of closeness – “tele-mediated proximity” – while family
members are physically separated.
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The communicative practice of tele-mediated proximity seems to have evolved
from the interplay between new, technological possibilities of ubiquitous and mobile
communication and changes in modern everyday and family life. With regard to the
latter the distributed family life (outside as well as at home), changed images of the
relationship between parents and between parents and their children, and increased
time pressure in daily life is emphasized. Thus, tele-mediated proximity is part of
especially parents’ attempts to handle the changing conditions of modern family life.
What seems to solve the problem of creating and maintaining close relationships
under the conditions of late modernity might in the end enable further intensification
of the very same conditions of family life to which the practice of tele-mediated
proximity is a response.
Taken separately, each of the described analyses contributes with insights into the
significance of the use of ICT within different parts of modern everyday and family
life. The analyses show the complexity related to the use of ICT and emphasize the
importance of interpreting this in a social, cultural and material context. The analyses
also show that the use of ICT can imply “unintended consequences” which escape
the attention of the users. For instance, at the same time as ICT-based work at home
can be part of parents’ individual efforts to solve the time-conflict between family life
and an ambitious or demanding working life, the practice might in the end – if it
becomes “normal” to work at home in evenings and weekends – result in increased
expectations of the employees’ individual flexibility and work performance.