Big Disconnect

August 1, 2012
As much as technology has been embraced for its promises as labor-saving and amusement, it has also been lamented for stealing jobs and alienation. Slade, author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America (2006), offers a broad view, from the late nineteenth century to the present, across disciplines, from psychology to economics, to explore the ways that technology, with its ever-growing array of gadgets, has heightened feelings of loneliness. In incredibly detailed histories of how our amusementstelevision, movies, musichave evolved, Slade explores our changing expectations and relationships with technology, the ever more personal and closed delivery of entertainment that separates us from contact with others. By eliminating the costly and inconvenient human factor through technologies ranging from vending machines selling postcards at railroad stations to transistor radios to the Walkman and iPod, we have been slowly moving away from contact with others to isolation in broader urban spaces, transferring trust in other people to trust in machines. Slade offers a thoughtful and engaging examination of the cost we pay for our gadgets and an appeal to reconnect as humans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)