How does ICT use fit into social practice?

Gillian: Chinese social life is built around establishing and maintaining social connections; this so-called system or construct of guanxi (关系)is one way of describing it. These new ICTs have been integrated into these existing systems of social connections. You see them as very important in this already strong system of family life. There are many, many Chinese individuals who leave their families and hometowns for better educational or economic opportunities and ICTs allow these distant individuals to maintain strong connections with their families. But probably a larger change would be in relation to these less strong relationships. The ease and flexibility of instant messaging services makes it much easier to maintain and strengthen these weaker social connections, and it takes a lot less effort to do so with these new technologies.

Tom: Right, but what we are talking about here is actually social relationships, which is a part of social practice, but it's not all of the entirety of social practice and I do think practice is something we should be thinking about here and it's really important to consider actually how ICTs fit into and become part of the minutia of daily life and how they shape, people shape their ICT use around other activities, whether it's using it when they get home from school, before bed, or during a meal or in a lull in conversation, I think ICTs have just become so embedded in people's lives that they don't even tend to think about it and their phone is the closest thing to them all the time.

Gillian: As cell phones have become so prevalent, the texture of social practice has also changed. This goes back to the practice of placing cell phones on the table when arriving at a social occasion or the expectation of a response to an instant message, or the fact that it is socially accepted to engage with one's cell phone during a dinner. The ability to engage with one physically present social circle or social situation while having access to many other social connections and other types of experiences through one's phone is both changing and being adapted to existing social practices.

Tom: I do think that we also have to think about the social practice of using ICTs in terms of the feeling and connections that people have with this technology and themselves and it might be that people associate certain emotions with certain types of communication or closeness with some and not with others or they might pull out their cell phones rather than talking to someone at a particular moment because they actually hanker after or want that emotional experience that that particular moment and form of communication embodies and I think people just feel their way through communication.

Gillian: Absolutely, the idea of social practice is such a big theme. It encompasses social relationships, the norms of different social engagements and the social and emotional experience of the individual, but it speaks to the ubiquitousness and importance of ICTs that they are affecting social practice at so many different levels.