Technologies of Communication: From a Sociology of Uses to a Sociology of Hyper-Modern Experience
This article explores how the sociology of the usage of communication technologies first emerged as an outcome of simple impact studies into the effect of technologies on society to become, at least in part, a sociology of experience. In turn, the latter deals specifically with the question of how and to what extent, in this world where these technologies irrigate nearly the totality of the surfaces of our lives, the contemporary individual stays in control. In particular it poses the question of the autonomy of the self-subject (reflexive and in retreat) regarding the self-object (constantly tracked, calibrated and metabolized through an ensemble of indicators from those self same technologies). As a consequence it challenges sociology to deal with one of the central issues of the hypermodern society.