Discusses in nontechnical language ten central questions about
technology that illuminate what technology is and why it matters.
Technology matters, writes David Nye, because it is inseparable
from being human. We have used tools for more than 100,000 years,
and their central purpose has not always been to provide
necessities. People excel at using old tools to solve new problems
and at inventing new tools for more elegant solutions to old tasks.
Perhaps this is because we are intimate with devices and machines
from an early age-as children, we play with technological toys:
trucks, cars, stoves, telephones, model railroads, Playstations.
Through these machines we imagine ourselves into a creative
relationship with the world. As adults, we retain this
technological playfulness with gadgets and appliances-Blackberries,
cell phones, GPS navigation systems in our cars. We use technology
to shape our world, yet we think little about the choices we are
making. In Technology Matters, Nye tackles ten central questions
about our relationship to technology, integrating a half-century of
ideas about technology into ten cogent and concise chapters, with
wide-ranging historical examples from many societies. He asks: Can
we define technology? Does technology shape us, or do we shape it?
Is technology inevitable or unpredictable? (Why do experts often
fail to get it right?)? How do historians understand it? Are we
using modern technology to create cultural uniformity, or
diversity? To create abundance, or an ecological crisis? To destroy
jobs or create new opportunities? Should "the market" choose our
technologies? Do advanced technologies make us more secure, or
escalate dangers? Does ubiquitous technology expand our mental
horizons, or encapsulate us in artifice? These large questions may
have no final answers yet, but we need to wrestle with them-to live
them, so that we may, as Rilke puts it, "live along some distant
day into the answers."
General
Imprint: |
MIT Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Technology Matters |
Release date: |
August 2007 |
First published: |
2006 |
Authors: |
David E Nye
(Professor)
|
Dimensions: |
203 x 137 x 16mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
304 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-262-64067-1 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-262-64067-8 |
Barcode: |
9780262640671 |
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!