RE: The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The Gap Between Social Requirements and Technical Feasibility

Summary

This paper argues that there is an inherent social-technical gap at the heart of the CSCW applications. It posits that CSCW, like HCI, has, over time, demonstrated multiple intellectual problems. According to the paper, CSCW shares problems of generalizability from small groups to a general population (as do all of the social sciences), prediction of affordances (as does HCI), and the applicability of new technological possibilities (as does the rest of computer science). This usually manifests as a fundamental discord between what is required socially and what is applicable on a technical level.

Opinion

Human activity is mostly predictable and contextualized. Nevertheless, it lacks the technical mechanisms to fully support the social world uncovered by the social findings of CSCW. This social-technical gap is unlikely to go away, although it certainly can be better understood and perhaps approached.

It is generally agreed that the dichotomy is also CSCW's signature creation. Because CSCW exists intellectually at the seemingly borderless interface between of technology and social settings, its merit depends mostly on the working knowledge of both disciplines.

While debate continues about the core issues in the emergent field of CSCW, it creates a new window of opportunity – the possibility of branching out, or viewing the CSCW from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is another indication as to innovative opportunities that can be tapped from the fundamental discordant nature of CSCW – one that can improve with a deeper intellectual appreciation of the context of use of a shared system and the tasks users wish to perform.