First Monday Interviews Bonnie Nardi

FM: Is there a relationship between reality and responsibility?

I have been influenced by activity theory. It's a psychological theory that was developed in the Soviet Union in the 1920s under conditions of extreme repression and danger. It basically says, you are what you do. Thinking is a kind of doing. Thought and behavior are cut from the same cloth. You are responsible for your fantasies, your memories, your thought processes - activities you have chosen. In "The Little Prince" by St. Exupery, the fox says the same thing to the little prince: "You are responsible for your rose." That's what my book "Context and Consciousness" is about. I want people to reflect on the technology they design and use. Is that video system with surveillance capabilities really what you want to design and sell? How about making a cheap handheld device to help people in developing countries learn to read instead? This may sound naive, but decisions like this get made in industry everyday and these decisions impact lives, lots of lives. Reality is the accretion of all these decisions, the activities we choose.