Actor-network theory

In Latour's The Sociology of a Few Mundane Objects, he brings up many interesting points that are relevant more today than they have ever been.  When he discusses "Delegation to Nonhumans (231)," appointing a non-human to replace a human in a mundane task is something that can be practical.  He cites an automatic groom that closes the door behind patrons.  The non-human spring that has been given a human task can be more efficient but less personal than the person politely closing the door behind someone.

The Actor-network theory is an interesting way to approach the formation of a network.  Not only are the humans involved forming relationships with each other, but it also contains the physical, non-human objects that create the network as a whole.  This approach made me think of the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks.  The movie only had one "human" character, but the network was an entire island.  He also assigned human traits and responsibilities to a non-human.  He painted a face on a volleyball and named it Wilson, and this object served as his social outlet through the movie while he was attempting to escape from the island.

I liked the inter-dependence Latour refers to regarding a relationship between a human and non-human object.  Non-humans can take human roles, humans can take non-human roles, and they can both perform the duties of each other in certain situations.  He refers to the term "actor" for this, and says that actors are able to interchange roles and duties regardless of their origin.  We have drawn very similar ideas and concepts from our Social Media class.  Sherry Turkle's book Alone Together and Greg Ulmer's book Electronic Monuments both bring up the exact same arguments and question our relationship and dependency on technology.

In Cast Away, Tom Hanks relied on Wilson for companionship, much like many of the people studied in Turkle's book when they were given robots to interact with.  The same can be said with video games and the interactions they create.  In World of Warcraft, people are using something non-human to create a human relationship and many treat this as real, with everyone in the relationship becoming actors rather than humans or non-humans.