There is no suggestion that this could ever be a substitute for having lived through those experiences but it does highlight ethnocentric biases that exist within all researchers and adds to our ability to ‘go native’, at least to the extent of knowing something of the development of current social conditions in a region and culture that would otherwise be totally alien to the researcher. This could be termed ‘acclimatization’, developing awareness and an understanding of the macro environment that has an impact on all micro environments. How this would translate into an ethnographic study of a user community you may be studying.