The domestication of an everyday health technology: a case study of electric toothbrushes

Carter, Simon; Green, Judith and Thorogood, Nicki (2013). The domestication of an everyday health technology: a case study of electric toothbrushes. Social Theory and Health, 11 pp. 344–367.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/sth.2013.15

URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/sth/journal/vaop/...

Abstract

Using the electric toothbrush as an example, this article examines the growing acceptability of domestic health technologies that blur the traditional boundaries between health, aesthetics and consumption. By using empirical material from individual and household interviews about people’s oral health practices, this research explores the relationships between an everyday artefact, its users and their environments. It investigates the ways in which oral health technologies do, or do not, become domesticated in the home environment. We conclude that the domestication of oral health technologies is not inevitable, with the electric toothbrush often becoming an ‘unstable object’ in the domestic setting.

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