• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.113-155
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• 2020

This paper reviews literature from history, media studies, and anthropology to provide an expansive spatio-temporal framework that examines the epistemic and material aspects of computing technologies in the Anthropocene. Reconceptualizing computing as planetary technology has become imperative in the Anthropocene, in which digital sensors, devices, and infrastructures are increasingly mediating human activities to understand, utilize, and consume the Earth. Drawing upon the previous works that have examined the social, political, and cultural elements of information and communication technology (ICT), we provide three perspectives to reconsider the relationship between computing technology and the planet. Computing technologies are increasingly being adopted to measure the anthropogenic impacts on the plant, while these technologies themselves also take part in leaving deep social and material traces upon the Earth's surface. In this sense, we argue that the Anthropocene and computing technologies are co-constructive. Such a renewed perspective on computing and the Anthropocene, we hope, would bring new scalar imaginations to future studies on ICT.