Left to Our Own Devices

Left to Our Own Devices
Author: Margaret E. Morris
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2018-12-25
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0262039133

Unexpected ways that individuals adapt technology to reclaim what matters to them, from working through conflict with smart lights to celebrating gender transition with selfies. We have been warned about the psychological perils of technology: distraction, difficulty empathizing, and loss of the ability (or desire) to carry on a conversation. But our devices and data are woven into our lives. We can't simply reject them. Instead, Margaret Morris argues, we need to adapt technology creatively to our needs and values. In Left to Our Own Devices, Morris offers examples of individuals applying technologies in unexpected ways—uses that go beyond those intended by developers and designers. Morris examines these kinds of personalized life hacks, chronicling the ways that people have adapted technology to strengthen social connection, enhance well-being, and affirm identity. Morris, a clinical psychologist and app creator, shows how people really use technology, drawing on interviews she has conducted as well as computer science and psychology research. She describes how a couple used smart lights to work through conflict; how a woman persuaded herself to eat healthier foods when her photographs of salads garnered “likes” on social media; how a trans woman celebrated her transition with selfies; and how, through augmented reality, a woman changed the way she saw her cancer and herself. These and the many other “off-label” adaptations described by Morris cast technology not just as a temptation that we struggle to resist but as a potential ally as we try to take care of ourselves and others. The stories Morris tells invite us to be more intentional and creative when left to our own devices.

My Own Devices

My Own Devices
Author: Dessa
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2018-09-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1524742309

“I love the way Dessa puts words together. In her songs, in her poetry, in her short stories, and now in this beautiful and candid memoir. Wanna be an artist? Get this book.” --Lin-Manuel Miranda "Dessa writes beautifully about a wide range of topics, including science, music, and the pain that comes with being in love; it's a surprising and generous memoir by a singular voice." --NPR, Best Books of 2018 Dessa defies category--she is an intellectual with an international rap career and an inhaler in her backpack; a creative writer fascinated by philosophy and behavioral science; and a funny, charismatic performer dogged by blue moods and heartache. She's ferocious on stage and endearingly neurotic in the tour van. Her stunning literary debut memoir stitches together poignant insights on love, science, and language--a demonstration of just how far the mind can travel while the body is on a six-hour ride to the next gig. In "The Fool That Bets Against Me," Dessa writes to Geico to request a commercial insurance policy for the broken heart that's helped her write so many sad songs. "A Ringing in the Ears" tells the story of her father building a wooden airplane in their backyard garage. In "'Congratulations,'" she describes the challenge of recording a song for The Hamilton Mixtape in a Minneapolis basement, straining for a high note and hoping for a break. "Call Off Your Ghost" chronicles the fascinating project she undertook with a team of neuroscientists to try to clinically excise romantic feelings for an old flame. Her writing is infused with scientific research, dry wit, a philosophical perspective, and an abiding tenderness for the people she tours with and the people she leaves behind to be on the road. My Own Devices is an uncompromising and candid account of a life in motion, in music, and in love. Dessa is as compelling on the page as she is onstage, making My Own Devices the debut of a unique and deft literary voice.

His Own Devices

His Own Devices
Author: Douglas Wynne
Publisher:
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2021-02-24
Genre:
ISBN:

In 2016 an occult cabal activates a psychic trigger in a popular video game and a countdown to chaos begins.While her husband is deployed in Afghanistan, Jessica Ritter finds herself navigating the pitfalls of parenting on her own. That includes moderating her ten-year-old son's screen time-an obsession that hits a fever pitch when YouTube sensation Rainbow Dave releases an addictive new iPad game. Gavin knows he isn't supposed to keep secrets from his parents, but when his achievements in the game unlock personal messages from Dave instructing him to embark on real world mini-quests, he can't resist. In the aftermath of an ambush that leaves her husband missing in action, Jessica grapples with fear and sorrow while clues to a threat closer to home evade her detection. Rainbow Dave, the charismatic host of Scream Time, is America's cool big brother-a gamer who built a video empire on the strength of his personality. He is also the focus of a shadowy conspiracy hell-bent on sowing chaos with vast technological resources. Dave's anonymous benefactors have granted him a glimpse of paradise between the pixels, and the real world hasn't looked the same since. Now, wired with a head full of unholy revelations and a crate full of dangerous devices, he's on a mission to help his fans "level up" at a live event. Scream Time is coming to town, and it may be too late to stop a deadly game.

Left to Their Own Devices

Left to Their Own Devices
Author: Julie M. Albright
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2019-04-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1633884457

A sociologist explores the many ways that digital natives' interaction with technology has changed their relationship with people, places, jobs, and other stabilizing structures and created a new way of life that is at odds with the American Dream of past generations. Digital natives are hacking the American Dream. Young people brought up with the Internet, smartphones, and social media are quickly rendering old habits, values, behaviors, and norms a distant memory--creating the greatest generation gap in history. In this eye-opening book, digital sociologist Julie M. Albright looks at the many ways in which younger people, facilitated by technology, are coming "untethered" from traditional aspirations and ideals, and asks: What are the effects of being disconnected from traditional, stabilizing social structures like churches, marriage, political parties, and long-term employment? What does it mean to be human when one's ties to people, places, jobs, and societal institutions are weakened or broken, displaced by digital hyper-connectivity? Albright sees both positives and negatives. On the one hand, mobile connectivity has given digital nomads the unprecedented opportunity to work or live anywhere. But, new threats to well-being are emerging, including increased isolation, anxiety, and loneliness, decreased physical exercise, ephemeral relationships, fragmented attention spans, and detachment from the calm of nature. In this time of rapid, global, technologically driven change, this book offers fresh insights into the unintended societal and psychological implications of lives exclusively lived in a digital world.

Does Technology Drive History?

Does Technology Drive History?
Author: Merritt Roe Smith
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 1994-06-02
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9780262691673

These thirteen essays explore a crucial historical questionthat has been notoriously hard to pin down: To what extent,and by what means, does a society's technology determine itspolitical, social, economic, and cultural forms? These thirteen essays explore a crucial historical question that has been notoriously hard to pin down: To what extent, and by what means, does a society's technology determine its political, social, economic, and cultural forms? Karl Marx launched the modern debate on determinism with his provocative remark that "the hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist," and a classic article by Robert Heilbroner (reprinted here) renewed the debate within the context of the history of technology. This book clarifies the debate and carries it forward.Marx's position has become embedded in our culture, in the form of constant reminders as to how our fast-changing technologies will alter our lives. Yet historians who have looked closely at where technologies really come from generally support the proposition that technologies are not autonomous but are social products, susceptible to democratic controls. The issue is crucial for democratic theory. These essays tackle it head-on, offering a deep look at all the shadings of determinism and assessing determinist models in a wide variety of historical contexts. Contributors Bruce Bimber, Richard W. Bulliet, Robert L. Heilbroner, Thomas P. Hughes, Leo Marx, Thomas J. Misa, Peter C. Perdue, Philip Scranton, Merritt Roe Smith, Michael L. Smith, John M. Staudenmaier, Rosalind Williams

Left to My Own Devices

Left to My Own Devices
Author: Javier E. Díaz Vera
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2012
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1780526466

This book is the result of five years of intensive dedication to teaching innovation and curriculum development and offers a series of studies exploring how mobile technologies in particular, and mobile learning in general, may be used for second language teaching and learning in a wide variety of environments. Although a strong emphasis is laid on issues to do with autonomy and independence in second language acquisition, the volume also examines the connections and interrelations of mobile learning and second language teaching and learning process on the whole, as well as the process of adoption of new, mobile technologies as teaching tools in various communities across the globe. The volume is targeted at a broad spectrum of readers including academics in the field of e-learning, online learning, and ICT-based learning, with an interest in exploring the possibilities of mobile-assisted learning and the new developments of ICT--in particular, portable devices--for the foreign language classroom. It is most attractive to those interested in the emerging field of mobile-assisted learning in general, and its potential for foreign language teaching and learning in particular.

Our Own Devices

Our Own Devices
Author: Ewan Morris
Publisher:
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2005-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780716533375

National symbols have long been highly contentious in Ireland, and they remain so today. While there have been a number of studies which have examined the role of symbols in the contemporary conflict in Northern Ireland, as yet there has been no detailed study of debates about national symbols in twentieth-century Ireland. This book fills that gap, outlining the historical background to the continuing controversy about national symbols in Ireland and shedding new light on the deep political divisions which have marked Irish society throughout this century. Our Own Devices focuses on the crucial period from 1922 to 1939 which saw the creation and consolidation of new governments in the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. It also examines in detail the selection of official symbols of state by governments in both parts of Ireland, and public responses to those symbols. Having discussed the conflicts over symbols which took place in the early decades of the two states, the book concludes by bringing the story up-to-date and relating earlier controversies about national symbols to current debates about the role of symbols in conflict and peacemaking in Northern Ireland. This study is a pioneering work in this relatively new area of Irish history, and is based on extensive original research, using many sources which have not previously been cited in published works.

Our Own Devices

Our Own Devices
Author: Edward Tenner
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2004-06-08
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0375707077

This delightful and instructive history of invention shows why National Public Radio dubbed Tenner “the philosopher of everyday technology.” Looking at how our inventions have impacted our world in ways we never intended or imagined, he shows that the things we create have a tendency to bounce back and change us. The reclining chair, originally designed for brief, healthful relaxation, has become the very symbol of obesity. The helmet, invented for military purposes, has made possible new sports like mountain biking and rollerblading. The typewriter, created to make business run more smoothly, has resulted in wide-spread vision problems, which in turn have made people more reliant on another invention—eyeglasses. As he sheds light on the many ways inventions surprise and renew us, Tenner considers where technology will take us in the future, and what we can expect from the devices that we no longer seem able to live without.

The Tech-Wise Family

The Tech-Wise Family
Author: Andy Crouch
Publisher: Baker Books
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2017-04-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493406558

Making conscientious choices about technology in our families is more than just using internet filters and determining screen time limits for our children. It's about developing wisdom, character, and courage in the way we use digital media rather than accepting technology's promises of ease, instant gratification, and the world's knowledge at our fingertips. And it's definitely not just about the kids. Drawing on in-depth original research from the Barna Group, Andy Crouch shows readers that the choices we make about technology have consequences we may never have considered. He takes readers beyond the typical questions of what, where, and when and instead challenges them to answer provocative questions like, Who do we want to be as a family? and How does our use of a particular technology move us closer or farther away from that goal? Anyone who has felt their family relationships suffer or their time slip away amid technology's distractions will find in this book a path forward to reclaiming their real life in a world of devices.

My Tech-Wise Life

My Tech-Wise Life
Author: Amy Crouch
Publisher: Baker Books
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2020-11-17
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1493426834

It's time to take our power back We can barely imagine our lives without technology. Tech gives us tools to connect with our friends, listen to our music, document our lives, share our opinions, and keep up with what's going on in the world. Yet it also tempts us to procrastinate, avoid honest conversations, compare ourselves with others, and filter our reality. Sometimes, it feels like our devices have a lot more control over us than we have over them. But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, we deserve so much more than what technology offers us. And when we're wise about how we use our devices, we can get more--more joy, more connection, more out of life. Tech shouldn't get in the way of a life worth living. Let's get tech-wise.