It found that, instead of making office communications easier and more open, email was being used politically by managers to guard their backs and push their ploys. Other findings were similarly counter-intuitive ', says Woolgar. Educationally, the programme found that students in 'wired' university halls of residence resisted being sucked into their computer screens, using the new technology mainly for social purposes. Fears of new technology are neither straightforward nor uniformly shared, according to Woolgar. Whereas electronic surveillance in uncertain social situations often creates alarm, its use in the workplace is generally accepted by most employees.
Social context is all, especially when it comes to using the Internet for information and education.
For this reason, Woolgar is sceptical of brave government ambitions to put a computer in every socially excluded sitting-room in the land. While accepting that these ex-users may eventually return to the fold, Woolgar believes that we may be witnessing the end of one teenage fashion cycle. I asked Graham to unpick the skein of scepticism and excitement that ran through his response. Of course it will change what we do - in the same way that the car changed the whole structure of the economy and society. But there is this disturbing belief that it is all inevitable, all set in stone.