Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2023 - Technology (Social Issues)
- Mahogany S.
- Monday, February 13, 2023
Collection
Check out one of these titles and fulfill the #BroaderBookshelf 2023 Reading Challenge prompt "read a fiction or nonfiction book about technology".
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf 2023 Reading Challenge. Find more lists here.
The Inner History of Devices
Published in 2008
I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works
Why Your World, Work & Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted
Published in 2010
A technology guru at the forefront of Internet developments provides a layperson's explanation of how a radically changed media world is influencing human behavior, sharing recommendations for short- and long-term responses.
Who Can You Trust?
How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart
Published in 2017
Utopia is Creepy
And Other Provocations
Published in 2016
"A freewheeling, sharp-shooting indictment of our tech-besotted culture by the Pulitzer Prize finalist. Over the past dozen years, Nicholas Carr has made his name as an agenda-setting writer on our complicated relationship with technology. Gathering posts from his blog Rough Type as well as seminal pieces published in The Atlantic, the MIT Technology Review, and the Wall Street Journal, he now provides an alternative history of the digital age, chronicling its roller-coaster crazes and crashes (remember MySpace or Second Life?). Ground-breaking essays such as 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' and 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Privacy' dissect the logic behind Silicon Valley's 'liberation mythology,' laying bare how technology has both enriched and imprisoned us--sometimes at the same time. A forward-looking new essay rounds out the collection. With searching assessments of topics from the future of work and play to free choice and the fate of reading, Carr once again challenges us to see our world anew"--Provided by publisher.
The Future is Faster Than You Think
How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives
Published in 2020
"From the New York Times bestselling authors of Abundance and Bold comes a practical playbook for technological convergence in our modern era"-- Provided by publisher.
Digital Destiny
How the New Age of Data Will Transform the Way We Work, Live, and Communicate
Published in 2015
"The world's mass adoption of digital technologies portends the beginning of a new era for humanity in the realms of economics, health, travel, and culture. In this new digital age, technology will solve our most ancient problems, create new challenges, and transform life as we know it"-- Provided by publisher.
Analogia
The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control
Published in 2020
"In Analogia, technology historian George Dyson presents a startling look back at the analog age and life before the digital revolution--and an unsettling vision of what comes next"-- Provided by publisher.
Hello World
Being Human in the Age of Algorithms
Published in 2018
By weaving in relatable, real world stories with accessible explanations of the underlying mathematics that power algorithms, Hello World helps us to determine their power, expose their limitations, and examine whether they really are improvement on the human systems they replace.
The End of Absence
Reclaiming What We've Lost in a World of Constant Connection
Published in 2014
"Only one generation in history (ours) will experience life both with and without the Internet. For everyone who follows us, online life will simply be the air they breathe. Today, we revel in ubiquitous information and constant connection, rarely stopping to consider the implications for our logged-on lives. Michael Harris chronicles this massive shift, exploring what we've gained--and lost--in the bargain. In this eloquent and thought-provoking book, Harris argues that our greatest loss has been that of absence itself--of silence, wonder, and solitude. It's a surprisingly precious commodity, and one we have less of every year. Drawing on a vast trove of research and scores of interviews with global experts, Harris explores this "loss of lack" in chapters devoted to every corner of our lives, from sex and commerce to memory and attention span. The book's message is urgent: once we've lost the gift of absence, we may never remember its value"-- Provided by publisher.
What Technology Wants
Published in 2010
Profiles technology as an evolving international system with predictable trends, counseling readers on how to prepare themselves and future generations by anticipating and steering their choices toward developing needs.
If then
How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future
Published in 2020
"A brilliant, revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, from the author of the acclaimed international bestseller, These Truths. The Simulmatics Corporation, founded in 1959, mined data, targeted voters, accelerated news, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge--decades before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica. Silicon Valley likes to imagine it has no past but the scientists of Simulmatics are the long-dead grandfathers of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Borrowing from psychological warfare, they used computers to predict and direct human behavior, deploying their "People Machine" from New York, Cambridge, and Saigon for clients that included John Kennedy's presidential campaign, the New York Times, Young & Rubicam, and, during the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense. Jill Lepore, distinguished Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, unearthed from the archives the almost unbelievable story of this long-vanished corporation, and of the women hidden behind it. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lepore argues, Simulmatics invented the future by building the machine in which the world now finds itself trapped and tormented, algorithm by algorithm"-- Provided by publisher.
The Day It Finally Happens
Alien Contact, Dinosaur Parks, Immortal Humans- and Other Possible Phenomena
Published in 2019
"Scenarios about days that could come to pass in the future." --Provided by publisher.
On the Future
Prospects for Humanity
Published in 2018
Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes--good and bad--are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity's prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow. The future of humanity is bound to the future of science and hinges on how successfully we harness technological advances to address our challenges. If we are to use science to solve our problems while avoiding its dystopian risks, we must think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long term. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence--if pursued and applied wisely--could empower us to boost the developing and developed world and overcome the threats humanity faces on Earth, from climate change to nuclear war. At the same time, further advances in space science will allow humans to explore the solar system and beyond with robots and AI. But there is no "Plan B" for Earth--no viable alternative within reach if we do not care for our home planet. Rich with fascinating insights into cutting-edge science and technology, this accessible book will captivate anyone who wants to understand the critical issues that will define the future of humanity on Earth and beyond.
Present Shock
When Everything Happens Now
Published in 2013
"An award-winning author explores how the world works in our age of "continuous now" Back in the 1970s, futurism was all the rage. But looking forward is becoming a thing of the past. According to Douglas Rushkoff, "presentism" is the new ethos of a society that's always on, in real time, updating live. Guided by neither history nor long term goals, we navigate a sea of media that blend the past and future into a mash-up of instantaneous experience. Rushkoff shows how this trend is both disorienting and exhilarating. Without linear narrative we get both the humiliations of reality TV and the associative brilliance of The Simpsons. With no time for long term investing, we invent dangerously compressed derivatives yet also revive sustainable local businesses. In politics, presentism drives both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement. In many ways, this was the goal of digital technology--outsourcing our memory was supposed to free us up to focus on the present. But we are in danger of squandering this cognitive surplus on trivia. Rushkoff shows how we can instead ground ourselves in the reality of the present tense. "-- Provided by publisher.
The Future is Analog
How to Create a More Human World
Published in 2022
"The beloved author of The Revenge of Analog lays out a case for a human future--not the false technological utopia we've been living. For years, consumers have been promised a simple, carefree digital future. We could live, work, learn, and play from the comforts of our homes, and have whatever we desire brought to our door with the flick of a finger. Instant communication would bring us together. Technological convenience would give us more time to focus on what really mattered. When the pandemic hit, that future transformed into the present, almost overnight. And the reviews aren't great. It turns out that leaving the house is underrated, instant communication spreads anger better than joy, and convenience takes away time rather than giving it to us. Oops. But as David Sax argues in this insightful book, we've also had our eyes opened. There is nothing about the future that has to be digital, and embracing the reality of human experience doesn't mean resisting change. In chapters exploring work, school, leisure, and more, Sax asks perceptive and pointed questions: what happens to struggling students when they're not in a classroom? If our software is built for productivity, who tends to the social and cultural aspects of our jobs? Can you have religion without community? For many people, the best parts of quarantine have been the least digital ones: baking bread, playing board games, going hiking. We used our hands and hugged our children and breathed fresh air. This book suggests that if we want a healthy future, we need to choose not convenience but community, not technology but humanity"-- Provided by publisher.
Grown Up Digital
How the Net Generation is Changing Your World
Published in 2009
Looks at the Net Generation in the workforce, the way they process information and learn, the methods that inspire and influence them, and the tools they need to stay engaged in a dynamic business environment.
A Dangerous Master
How to Keep Technology from Slipping Beyond Our Control
Published in 2015
"The co-author of Moral Machines explores accountability challenges related to a world shaped by such technological innovations as combat drones, 3-D printers and synthetic organisms to consider how people of the near future can be protected,"--Novelist.