Dear Ulla & AIR'ers - This is a bit sideways, but this process of habituation - and I think it is a *great* point you are making here - echoes the process of how Ed Hutchins "tames" cognition into "working practices" in his book: _Cognition in the Wild_ (1995). I wrote about it a bit in a paper (1997, unpub.) "Chunking, linking, surfing and mapping: How four different memory modes serve as cognitive artifacts for enhanced human-computer interaction." (not the habituation part, but the cognitive part). Donald Norman wrote about the computer as a "smart appliance" in _the Invisible Computer_ (1999) which may address habituation, it's a book on my shelf that I haven't read yet. I find it interesting when the computer/network moves from the realm of cognitve artifact (yes, my computer/network helps me to THINK) to ordinary. This could happen through entertainment (games), pragmatic use (just a typewriter), or a kind of invisibility (habituation) - which could tie back into the story of the telephone? as it became a habitual technology. Great stuff here! Denise ===== "Stupidity is not just a lack of content; it's also a process" Denise N. Rall, Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & PhD student, School of Education, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW, 2480 Australia Phone +61-2-6624-8627 Fax +61-2-6624-8637 Office (Tuesdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/edu/research/deniserall/index.html __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM). http://calendar.yahoo.com