FROM THE SURFER TO THE GAMBLER - NEW PROF ILES IN THE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF TECHNOLOGY AND TIME

In everyday life technology has manifold and ambivalent effects on the structures of time. Sociological analysis can therefore no longer ass ume that technological artifacts incorporate functional time demands w hich determine unequivocally the uses of time. Instead we have to cons ider technology as a medium which is open to its temporal applications . It is this perspective which allows us both to analyse empirically t he complex interrelationship of technology and time, and to delineate three lifestyle types - the ''surfer'', the ''sceptic'' and the ''gamb ler'' - as ways of interweaving technology and time.