Temporal orientations in human agency: a case of homecare practitioners as mobile phone users

Purpose In Nordic societies, the use of mobile phones for record-keeping during homecare visits has become an unquestioned routine. Care practitioners’ agency with these technologies has been explored mainly as a situationally constrained activity, neglecting their long-term orientations. Our empirical contribution is to explore care practitioners’ agentic relations to technology in a more nuanced way by including both dimensions. The theoretical contribution is to show synergy between temporal conceptualizations in theories of human agency and technology-in-practice, which highlight human agency as deliberation between situational and long-term temporal orientations. Design/methodology/approach Seven Finnish care practitioners were interviewed, and their entire work shifts were observed, consisting altogether 48 video-recorded homecare visits. The analysis of the ethnographic material was focused on situational and long-term temporal orientations of the care practitioners related to technologizing care. Findings Care practitioners in old age care approached technology use with three different kinds of temporal orientations: adapting – preferring to remain in the present; opposing – longing for the past; and engaging – viewing the technologization of old age care as positive for the future. Practical implications The situational usability of technology is not the only problem to be solved when technology is adopted for human-centred care; longer-term visions of how care and care work will change should also be voiced in healthcare organizations. Originality/value Temporal orientations may explain how and why care practitioners either just adapt to technology-use in care or act as change agents transforming both technologies and care.