The article proceeds from the observation that in everyday life we are surrounded by technology, most of which we do not use ourselves. Rather, we are, often involuntarily, subjected to the effects of others’ technology use. The article characterizes this condition as affected bystanding, a condition that comes with quotidian, often banal, experiences of passivity and marginality. The affected bystander is neither entirely included nor excluded by a technological system and the practices of its operation. For this reason, affected bystanding is not adequately accounted for by established categories of exchange, participation, collaboration, use, and non-use. Since affected bystanding is often an undesirable condition, the article discusses how the affected bystander may address her condition—escalate it—by positioning herself as bystanding affector.
AgrePE (1995) Conceptions of the user in computer systems design. In: ThomasPJ (ed.) The Social and Interactional Dimensions of Human-Computer Interfaces. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 67–106.
2.
AltmanM (2010) Make cool things with microcontrollers! In: Proceedings of the fourth international conference on tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction (TEI ‘10), Cambridge, MA, 25–27 January, pp. 361–364. New York: ACM.
3.
AnnafariMTAxelssonASBohlinE (2014) A socio-economic exploration of mobile phone service have-nots in Sweden. New Media & Society16(3): 415–433.
4.
ArendtH (1958) The Human Condition. Chicago, IL; London: The University of Chicago Press.
5.
BannonL (1991) From human factors to human actors: The role of psychology and human-computer interaction studies in system design. In: GreenbaumJKyngM (eds) Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 25–44.
6.
BannonL (2011) Reimagining HCI: Toward a more human-centered perspective. Interactions18(4): 50–57.
7.
BaumerEPS (2015) Usees. In: Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘15), Seoul, Republic of Korea, 18–23 April, pp. 3295–3298. New York: ACM.
8.
BaumerEPSBrubakerJR (2017) Post-userism. In: Proceedings of the 35th annual ACM conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘17), Denver, CO,6–11 May, pp. 6291–6303. New York: ACM.
9.
BaumerEPSSilbermanM (2011) When the implication is not to design (technology). In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘11), Vancouver, BC, Canada, 7–12 May, pp. 2271–2274. New York: ACM.
10.
BaumerEPSBurrellJAmesMG. (2015) On the importance and implications of studying technology non-use. Interactions22(2): 52–56.
11.
CasemajorNCoutureSDelfinM. (2015) Non-participation in digital media: Toward a framework of mediated political action. Media, Culture & Society37(6): 1–17.
12.
CastellsM (1996) The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, Volume 1: The Rise of the Network Society. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
13.
CooperGBowersJ (1995) Representing the user: Notes on the disciplinary rhetoric of human-computer interaction. In: ThomasPJ (ed.) The Social and Interactional Dimensions of Human-Computer Interfaces. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 48–66.
14.
DenningTDehlawiZKohnoT (2014) In situ with bystanders of augmented reality glasses: Perspectives on recording and privacy-mediating technologies. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘14), Toronto, ON, Canada, 26 April–1 May, pp. 2377–2386. New York: ACM.
15.
DeweyJ (1954 [1927]) The Public and Its Problems. Athens: Swallow Press, Ohio University Press.
16.
DiSalvoC (2012) Adversarial Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
17.
EkbiaHNardiB (2014) Heteromation and its (dis)contents: The invisible division of labor between humans and machines. First Monday. DOI: 10.5210/fm.v19i6.5331.
18.
FeathermanC (2016) DIY citizenship: Critical making and social media. New Media & Society18(4): 672–674.
19.
FerneleyELightB (2008) Unpacking user relations in an emerging ubiquitous computing environment: Introducing the bystander. Journal of Information Technology23(3): 163–175.
20.
FriedmanBKahnPHJrHagmanJ. (2006) The watcher and the watched: Social judgments about privacy in a public place. Human-Computer Interaction21(2): 235–272.
21.
GomezRFootKYoungM. (2015) Pulling the plug visually: Images of resistance to ICTs and connectivity. First Monday. DOI: 10.5210/fm.v20i11.6286.
22.
HelsperEJReisdorfBC (2017) The emergence of a “digital underclass” in Great Britain and Sweden: Changing reasons for digital exclusion. New Media & Society19(8): 1253–1270.
23.
HirschmanAO (1970) Exit, Voice, and Loyality: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
24.
HoffmannALProferesNZimmerM (2018) “Making the world more open and connected”: Mark Zuckerberg and the discursive construction of Facebook and its users. New Media & Society20(1): 199–218.
25.
HoustonLJacksonSJRosnerDK. (2016) Values in repair. In: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘16), Santa Clara, CA, 7–12 May, pp. 1403–1414. New York: ACM.
26.
HoyleRTemplemanRArmesS. (2014) Privacy behaviors of lifeloggers using wearable cameras. In: Proceedings of the 2014 ACM international joint conference on pervasive and ubiquitous computing (UbiComp ‘14), Seattle, WA, 13–17 September, pp. 571–582. New York: ACM.
27.
HüttenrauchHEklundhKSGreenA. (2006) Investigating spatial relationships in human-robot interaction. In: Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems, Beijing, China, 9–15 October, pp. 5052–5059. New York: IEEE.
28.
IraniLCSilbermanMS (2013) Turkopticon: Interrupting worker invisibility in amazon mechanical turk. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘13), Paris, 27 April–2 May, pp. 611–620. New York: ACM.
29.
KatzJ (1999) How Emotions Work. Chicago, IL; New York: The University of Chicago Press.
30.
KrummheuerAL (2015) Users, bystanders and agents: Participation roles in human-agent interaction. In: AbascalJBarbosaSFetterM (eds) Proceedings of Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT‘15). Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 240–247.
31.
KuznetsovSTaylorASReganT. (2012) At the seams: DIYbio and opportunities for HCI. In: Proceedings of the designing interactive systems conference (DIS ‘12), Newcastle upon Tyne, 11–15 June, pp. 258–267. New York: ACM.
32.
LampeCVitakJEllisonN (2013) Users and nonusers: Interactions between levels of adoption and social capital. In: Proceedings of the 2013 conference on computer supported cooperative work (CSCW ‘13), San Antonio, TX, 23–27 February, pp. 809–820. New York: ACM.
33.
Le DantecCADiSalvoC (2013) Infrastructuring and the formation of publics in participatory design. Social Studies of Science43(2): 241–264.
34.
LindtnerS (2015) Hacking with Chinese characteristics. The promises of the maker movement against China’s manufacturing culture. Science, Technology & Human Values40(5): 854–879.
35.
MarresN (2007) The issues deserve more credit: Pragmatist contributions to the study of public involvement in controversy. Social Studies of Science37(5): 759–780.
36.
MarresN (2012) Material Participation: Technology, the Environment and Everyday Publics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
37.
MateescuACRosenblatAboydd (2015) Police body-worn cameras, 24February. Available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2569481 (accessed 15 October 2016).
38.
NevesBBMonteirodeMatosJRenteR. (2015) The “non-aligned”: Young people’s narratives of rejection of social networking sites. Young23(2): 116–135.
39.
NguyenLU (2016) Infrastructural action in Vietnam: Inverting the techno-politics of hacking in the global South. New Media & Society18(4): 637–652.
PeacockSE (2014) How web tracking changes user agency in the age of Big Data: The used user. Big Data & Society1(2): 1–11.
42.
PierceJ (2012) Undesigning technology: Considering the negation of design by design. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘12), Austin, TX, May 5–10, pp. 957–966. New York: ACM.
43.
RattoMBolerM (2014) DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
44.
RedströmJ (2006) Towards user design? On the shift from object to user as the subject of design. Design Studies27(2): 123–139.
45.
RibakRRosenthalM (2015) Smartphone resistance as media ambivalence. First Monday. DOI: 10.5210/fm.v20i11.6307.
46.
RoedlDBardzellSBardzellJ (2015) Sustainable making? Balancing optimism and criticism in HCI discourse. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. DOI: 10.1145/2699742.
SatchellCDourishP (2009) Beyond the user: Use and non-use in HCI. In: Proceedings of the 21st annual conference of the Australian computer-human interaction special interest group: design: open 24/7 (OZCHI ‘09), Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 23–27 November, pp. 9–16. New York: ACM.
49.
SerresM (1982 [1980]) The Parasite. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
50.
ShellerMUrryJ (2003) Mobile transformations of “public” and “private” life. Theory, Culture & Society20(3): 107–125.
SimmelG (1964 [1903]) The metropolis and mental life. In: SimmelG (ed.) The Sociology of Georg Simmel (trans. WolffK). New York: Free Press, pp. 409–424.
53.
SinghalSNeustaedterCSchiphorstT. (2016) You are being watched: Bystanders’ perspective on the use of camera devices in public spaces. In: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems (CHI EA ‘16), Santa Clara, CA, 7–12 May, pp. 3197–3203. New York: ACM.
54.
StarSL (1990) Power, technology and the phenomenology of conventions: On being allergic to onions. The Sociological Review38(S1): 26–56.
55.
StarSLStraussA (1999) Layers of silence, arenas of voice: The ecology of visible and invisible work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)8(1–2): 9–30.
56.
StrathernM (1996) Cutting the network. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute2(3): 517–535.
57.
TangAFinkeMBlackstockM. (2008) Designing for bystanders: Reflections on building a public digital forum. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘08), Florence, 5–10 April, pp. 879–882. New York: ACM.
58.
TaylorPA (2005) From hackers to hacktivists: Speed bumps on the global superhighway?New Media & Society7(5): 625–646.
59.
ToombsALBardzellSBardzellJ (2015) The proper care and feeding of hackerspaces: Care ethics and cultures of making. In: Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘15), Seoul, Republic of Korea, 18–23 April, pp. 629–638. New York: ACM.
60.
TV-B-Gone (2017) TV-B-Gone universal remote control. Available at: http://www.tvbgone.com/ (accessed 14 January 2017).
61.
UretaS (2015) Assembling Policy: Transantiago, Human Devices, and the Dream of a World-Class Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
62.
WagenknechtSKornM (2016) Hacking as transgressive infrastructuring: Mobile phone networks and the German Chaos Computer club. In: Proceedings of the 19th ACM conference on computer-supported cooperative work & social computing (CSCW ‘16), San Francisco, CA, 27 February–2 March, pp. 1104–1117. New York: ACM.
63.
WakkaryRSchillingMLDaltonMA. (2015) Tutorial authorship and hybrid designers: The joy (and frustration) of DIY tutorials. In: Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI ‘15), Seoul, Republic of Korea, 18–23 April, pp. 609–618. New York: ACM.
64.
WyattSThomasGTerranovaT (2002) They came, they surfed, they went back to the beach: conceptualizing use and non-use of the Internet. In: WoolgarS (ed.) Virtual Society? Technology, Cyberbole, Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 23–40.
65.
WycheSPSchoenebeckSYForteA (2013) Facebook is a luxury: An exploratory study of social media use in rural Kenya. In: Proceedings of the 2013 conference on computer supported cooperative work (CSCW ‘13), San Antonio, TX, 23–27 February, pp. 33–44. New York: ACM.
