Beliefs about the effect of technology on people's work lives have shifted over time. The increasing automation of the workplace in the post-war era was enthusiastically received by employers and researchers alike; it was hoped that workers would be freed from monotonous tasks and that automation would result in a reduction of work hours, giving workers more free time to pursue their own interests. This positive outlook came under attack in the late 1960s and 1970s, when studies claimed that automation of the workplace was leading to a degeneration of work skills. According to critics like Braverman (1974) and Zimbalist (1979), workers who operate computerized machinery need fewer skills than workers who use traditional machines because the modern machine presumably performs most of the tasks that were formerly carried out by a skilled worker. In their view, the worker was becoming an "unthinking" adjunct to a "thinking" machine.
Noble (1979) noted that a traditional machine operator used to "transmit his skills and purpose to the machine by means of cranks, levers, and handles. Feedback is achieved through hands, ears, and eyes" (p. 21). In contrast, a worker operating a computerized machine has little more to do than push a button. Because of the complexity of modern machinery, Noble claimed, workers in automated work settings have little knowledge about the workings of the machines; rather, such knowledge is concentrated in the minds of engineers and programmers. This de-skilling view became widespread, especially among those who were not themselves machine operators.
In recent years, this notion has been challenged. Bailey (1989) points out that although some industries pursued a de-skilling strategy in the 1970s, new technologies have forced them to give up that approach. Firms that attempted to transfer all skills to machines soon realized that a skilled worker cannot easily be replaced by a machine. Taking a similar perspective, Levine (1995) cites an article in the Economist, which describes the fiasco in a General Motors plant where robots were to take over most of the tasks previously carried out by humans. These robots turned out to be highly unreliable in that they started to dismember one another, smash cars, spray paint everywhere, and fit the wrong equipment. The company had to give up its plans for full automation and return to the approach of hiring skilled workers to operate high-tech machinery.
What do workers need to know in order to operate these digital technologies, and just how do they perform this kind of work? Insightful studies have taken into account the situated actions of workers in various contexts (e.g., Hutchins, 1993 (navigation); Jordan, 1989 (midwifery); Scribner & Sachs, 1990 (stockroom work); Suchman, 1987 (human-machine interaction). A detailed examination of activity in the workplace was done by Goodwin (1994), who closely analyzes the interactions of people in different professions as they use the tools of their trade. For example, he describes the work of an archaeologist and her student assistant. The archaeologist corrects the student's way of observing an excavated dirt wall; the student learns how to see with an archaeologist's eye. Their work entails the integration of "talk, writing, tools, and distributed cognition as two parties collaborate to inscribe events they see in the earth onto paper" (p. 612). In another study, Goodwin (1992) describes the multi-activity responsibilities of employees in an airline's operations room. Their job is to coordinate the ground operations for the airline--baggage transfer, contact with arriving and departing planes, and management of statistics. Personnel in the operations room work with a variety of electronic tools such as computers, radios, and monitors connected to TV cameras outside the gates. In his analysis, Goodwin shows how workers' talk-in-action and their perceptions of what is on the monitors mutually inform one another. The workers' vision is "something that is artfully crafted within an endogenous community of competent practitioners" (p. 16).
