Background technologies

Borgmann (1984) makes a distinction in the device between its machinery and its function. But, he argues, only by concealing the machinery, the commodity can truly be enjoyed as a mere end. When we are not confronted with the machinery we can forget that it exists and the work (or engagement) it involves. This way it is much easier to enjoy the commodity. Today the gap has become very wide between the commodity that is accessible to everyone and the machinery known by almost no one

(p. 46). Take meat for example, very few know how to kill and butcher an animal, but meat is accessible to everyone.

The concealment of technology is what we see with most commodities in our consumption driven society. The machinery stays out of sight as much as possible to make it easier to enjoy the commodity. By concealing the machinery, a division between means and ends is being made possible. The machinery can be seen as the means and the commodity can be regarded as the ends. This way we can enjoy the ends and not bother about the means. With many commodities this can be very convenient.

Borgmann argues that, due to technological devices, what we keep is the commodity but what we lost is the engagement. Commodity in the case of the central heating is warmth. Other examples of commodities are a car providing transportation or a microwave providing ready-made meals. What we lost is the engagement with the process of preparing the commodity. In the example of transportation, we lost the engagement with the outside world. Instead of walking and being in nature, we sit in our cars and are physically separated from the outside world. In the example of the microwave meal, we lost the engagement of cooking our food.

Regarding the meat industry, consumers only see the commodity of the (prepacked) meat. Meat in supermarkets is cut down in such a way that it does not resemble an animal anymore. Of course, the package shows what animal the meat comes from, but it is made very easy to avoid making the link between the meat and the animal. As consumers do not see the process behind the product, the production process of raising and butchering animals is being put into the background where consumers do not have to see it. Hence the meat industry can be regarded as a background technology and the technology and the commodity are kept radically separated from each other.

Taking all this into account, I would say that background technologies can be seen as technologies we hardly ever interact with and we take for granted how they work. Don Ihde (1990) argues that background technologies can be delegated to the horizon of technology, meaning that they are situated at the borders of our lifeworld (Ihde, 1990). Background technologies only become visible when a piece of

technology breaks down. For instance, we take mobile internet on our smartphones for granted, only when it is not available we realise how much we rely on it. This means that background technologies influence our social environment and we

organise our lives around background technologies even if we do not use them directly (Kiran, 2012).

Background technologies shape the context for other experiences. For example, if we want the experience of drinking coffee, we only interact with the coffeemaker at the start and at the end of the process. What happens in the technological process in the middle is hidden, it does not show any kind of

transparency. As Ihde argues, their functioning is characterised by an absence (Ihde, 1990). But we organise our daily lives around the background technologies and we take them for granted, they are part of our lives. Hence background technologies can be considered not just to be absent, but taken-for-granted (Kiran, 2012).

Today, most people do not know how the machines in our lives really work. Most of the time we are not aware of what the machines are doing, they work in the background and only becomes visible when a piece of technology breaks down. We take background technologies for granted, whether we use them or whether they just idly wait to be used. In the example of the smart phones, online access is taken for granted. Many people use their mobile phone to access their e-mail, social media and check their bank accounts. We have integrated online access into our lives. In other words, background technologies influence actively the social environment we live in. For example, teenagers today have little idea how one could meet up with someone on a music festival before mobile phones were invented. The idea of leaving a note on a common message board at a central point at the festival has been replaced by leaving notes on WhatsApp or sms. The way we relate to the world is influenced by the technology we hold in our hands (mobile phone), but also by background technologies (mobile network). Hence, background technologies are not just absent, they shape the appearance of our environment, its structure and how we experience our world (Kiran, 2012).