I undertake what the philosopher of technology Don Ihde has alternately called a “phenomenology of human-technology” and “materialist phenomenology”. Such an approach avoids the tendency of strict materialism to treat technology as an autonomous, determining force, while also avoiding the tendency of human-centered approaches to regard technology as a passive, neutral tool. Instead, at every step the focus is on ways in which objects and subjects act together, through their encounters with each other. Action, Latour has argued, is not a preformed essence that resides within subjects or objects, but something they “co-produce”.

natasha dow schüll

Schüll, N.D. (2012). Addiction by Design. Princeton University Press.