The Social Construction of the “Non-professional Computer Users”: The “Center for the Popularization of Informatics” in Catalonia, Spain (1980s-1990s)

The histories of personal computing have been focusing lately on groups of users who saw computing as an exciting new field in activities apparently as different as hardware tinkering, coding or even playing video games. What do we know, however, about the users who did not share these interests and yet ended up using personal computers in their everyday contexts? Based on the study of the Center for the Popularization of Informatics—a Catalan institution that promoted computer technologies among diverse audiences, often unemployed and youth—this article shows how a new and heterogeneous user profile needed to be created: the “non-professional computer users.” With the increasing use of computers in the 1990s, most people employed computer technologies as a means to carry out regular duties and labor tasks performed, in most cases, even before computerization. In addition, the article suggests that computer technologies strengthened more than improved or reshaped the traditional labor processes and working conditions.