An Entrepreneur Best Book of the Year

Facebook makes us lonely. Selfies breed narcissism. On Twitter, hostility reigns. Pundits and psychologists warn that digital technologies substantially alter our emotional states, but in this lively investigation of changing feelings about technology, we learn that the gadgets we use don't just affect how we feel--they can profoundly change our sense of self. When we say we're bored, we don't mean the same thing as a Victorian dandy. Could it be that political punditry has helped shape a new kind of anger? Luke Fernandez and Susan Matt take us back in time to consider how our feelings of loneliness, boredom, vanity, and anger have evolved in tandem with new technologies.

"Technologies have been shaping [our] emotional culture for more than a century, argue computer scientist Luke Fernandez and historian Susan Matt in this original study. Marshalling archival sources and interviews, they trace how norms (say, around loneliness) have shifted with technological change."
--Nature

"A powerful story of how new forms of technology are continually integrated into the human experience."
--Publishers Weekly

Author: Luke Fernandez, Susan J. Matt
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 07/07/2020
Pages: 480
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 1.40d
ISBN: 9780674244726

About the Author
Fernandez, Luke: - Luke Fernandez is Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and codirector of the Tech Outreach Center at Weber State University. His essays on the effects of the internet on higher education have appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education. An NEH Digital Humanities Fellowship funded his course "Are Machines Making Us Stupid?" which generated media interest across Utah. He blogs at www.itintheuniversity.blogspot.com.Matt, Susan J.: - Susan J. Matt is Presidential Distinguished Professor of History at Weber State University and author of Keeping Up with the Joneses: Envy in American Consumer Society and Homesickness: An American History, both widely reviewed. She has appeared on many radio programs, including To the Best of Our Knowledge on Wisconsin Public Radio and the CBC's Tapestry, and her work has been recognized in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, New York Magazine, and Washington Post, among others.