The coming home of postindustrial society

The Internet and the perpetual state of connectivity that it supports are an indispensable part of late modern infrastructure from which no domain of society remains untouched. The home is one domain undergoing transformation. In what is often termed postindustrial society, the home has come to operate as a space in which everyday private and public activities converge via the network, a domain in which individuals, institutions and markets assume common residency, routinely engaging in exchanges reflective of a postindustrial service economy. As the author argues here, these dynamics can be productively conceptualized with the term ‘the postindustrial home’. With this concept the author opens up and situates the home as a transformed and evolving sociological space from which further and new sociological inquiry can stem. Keywords: postindustrial society, postindustrial home, home, sharing economy, private sphere, connectivity