Publikationen/Veröffentlichungen aus dem Kollegium, Veröffentlichungen der Kollegiat:innen

Smart Homes as Infrastructures of Social Life: Social Connections and Domestic Order

Konstantina Marra, Eva Hornecker
2026
https://doi.org/10.48340/ecscw2026_134

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We examine how Smart Home technologies intersect withresidents’ social connections, feelings of loneliness, andeveryday family dynamics. Through a two-week cultural probestudy we explore how people living with smart devicesdescribe changes in social ties, roles, and domestichierarchies in relation to their quality of life andwell-being. Our analysis shows that participants do notposition Smart Homes as social companions. Instead, theyframe them as infrastructural systems that manage theenvironment while indirectly reshaping routines, choredistributions, and experiences of presence/ absence,control, care and dependence. This suggests that SmartHomes influence social life less through direct emotionalconnection and more through the background conditions thatstructure everyday domestic relations.

Marra, K. & Hornecker, E. (2026). Smart Homes as Infrastructures of Social Life: Social Connections and Domestic Order. In Proceedings of the 24th EUSSET Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW 2026). EUSSET. https://doi.org/10.48340/ecscw2026_134