By Science News
Cell phones, cyberspaces and video poker are not just functional technologies. And prosthetic eyes, dialysis machines and defibrillators are not simply medical tools. When people become intimately attached to technology, technology becomes imbued with personal meanings.
In this series of essays, anthropologists, psychologists and others share stories that attempt to address two profound questions: Do the machines and devices we use serve our purposes? And do the machines and devices change our purposes?