Embedding and networking: conceptualizing experience in a technosociety

Embedding and networking offer two important perspectives on relationships between technology and society. This article explores the connotations of each term and their interrelationships. Our general thesis is that the development of various processes of disembedding prepares the way for, even makes necessary, a compensatory construction commonly called networking. We survey different dimensions of the disembedding process together with some descriptive analysis of the corresponding and compensating phenomena of network construction. This leads to an argument for what we term the “experiential gap” as a defining feature of contemporary ethical phenomenology (historically unique in degree though not in kind). We conclude by considering ways in which the experiential gap may be problematic. The focus is on individual responsibility in the context of environmental problems, and the extent to which the experiential gap demands that individuals in networked societies must actively work to take more things into account.