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The authors are engaged in a three‐year study of home information systems in the United Kingdom. The project addresses cable and satellite, multimedia CDs and paper‐based systems, and considers both supply (many of the companies involved are inward investors) and demand. Our aim is to profile and compare the expectations and perceptions (the ‘dreams’) of both sides. The first phase of the project (January‐June 1995) had led the team into households (some co‐terminous with families, some not) in both rural and urban Central Scotland. The initial visits, with as many members of the household as possible, were structured round an interview protocol covering four main areas: tasks; perceptions of technology; using the machine; the aesthetics of interaction. Subsequent visits explored salient issues which emergedfrom the protocol. Our preliminary findings suggest that the concept of integrated household channels is not being widely embraced by participants in our study who like to keep their technologies separate; that mixed motives (some of them task‐related) lie behind the purchase of systems; and that disposable time is a major constraint on use. We have derived a preliminary description of appropriation patterns: where do different systems fit in perceptions of home and work? of public and private space? of knowledge, information and entertainment?. The second phase of the project (October 1995‐May 1996) will consolidate this framework with results from a larger random sample in the EH12 postal area of Edinburgh.

This paper seeks to overview the issues, concerns and challenges relating to internet abuse and internet addiction in the workplace.

Using psychological literature, the paper outlines a number of important and inter‐related areas including brief overviews of internet abuse, and the most extreme form of internet abuse in the workplace (i.e. internet addiction).

The paper reveals that internet abuse is a relatively neglected area of research and that internet abuse is a potentially serious cause of concern for employers. It also highlights that there are many different kinds of internet abuse in the workplace (e.g. cybersexual internet abuse, and online friendship/relationship abuse, internet activity abuse, online information abuse, criminal internet abuse). It is concluded that internet abuse has the potential to be a serious occupational issue.

The empirical base for the paper was based on a relatively small number of peer‐reviewed papers and relies heavily on the author's own work in the area.

Using the findings of the psychological literature, some guidance for managers on the issue of internet abuse in the workplace are presented.

Research on internet abuse and internet addiction is sparse and there is very little in the empirical literature concerning implications internet abuse in the workplace.

Anthropology, and archaeology, a subdivision of anthropology, traditionally defined as the study of man and his cultures, has greatly expanded its scope of interest in recent years. These interests are now much more contemporary and therefore less arcane to the average layman.