How do researchers get close to the technology under investigation? Insights, benefits and challenges

As IT use continues to become more emergent, diverse, and complex we suggest there is often a need to understand its situated use. Getting close to technology enables scholars to problematise its use, better understand its contextual embeddedness and the diverse perceptions of actors, and critically, to overcome theorising technology as if in a frictionless world. We provide three diverse vignettes that outline our experience of getting close to technology use, the insights we gathered, and the tensions encountered, factors that are often omitted from publications. We discuss the different ways our interaction with the context influenced our understanding of the technology and the study overall. We also discuss the challenges we encountered and provide some recommendations for researchers.