7: Reflections and Considerations

One of the key themes emerging from this book involves the idea of punctuation and interaction order. More specifically, how interactional flows and organisation can be understood to be punctuated by moments of automation, in a variety of ways, that can be understood to be situated socio-technical productions, that occur within the wider context of the emerging contours of digital society characterised by significant change. These find resonance within and across key domains of social life, as outlined during the course of Chapters 2 and 6. In the following sections, we will reflect on and consider some of the implications of this idea for sociological theory and key ‘classic’ questions and related concerns, albeit with a significant emphasis on the interaction order and interactionism as a primarily conceptual lens.