The Social Impact of the Telephone
Author: Ithiel de Sola Pool
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press
Published: 1977
Total Pages: 518
ISBN-13: 9780262160667
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America Calling
Author: Claude S. Fischer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 442
ISBN-13: 0520086473
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAnnotation 'In his study of the telephone in American society, Fishcer confronts the most significant, but also the most difficult, question we can ask about a new technology--what differences did it make in the lives of its users?'Roland Marchand
The People's Network
Author: Robert MacDougall
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2014-01-08
Total Pages: 344
ISBN-13: 0812245695
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Bell System dominated telecommunications in the United States and Canada for most of the twentieth century, but its monopoly was not inevitable. In the decades around 1900, ordinary citizens—farmers, doctors, small-town entrepreneurs—established tens of thousands of independent telephone systems, stringing their own wires to bring this new technology to the people. Managed by opportunists and idealists alike, these small businesses were motivated not only by profit but also by the promise of open communication as a weapon against monopoly capital and for protection of regional autonomy. As the Bell empire grew, independents fought fiercely to retain control of their local networks and companies—a struggle with an emerging corporate giant that has been almost entirely forgotten. The People's Network reconstructs the story of the telephone's contentious beginnings, exploring the interplay of political economy, business strategy, and social practice in the creation of modern North American telecommunications. Drawing from government documents in the United States and Canada, independent telephone journals and publications, and the archives of regional Bell operating companies and their rivals, Robert MacDougall locates the national debates over the meaning, use, and organization of the telephone industry as a turning point in the history of information networks. The competing businesses represented dueling political philosophies: regional versus national identity and local versus centralized power. Although independent telephone companies did not win their fight with big business, they fundamentally changed the way telecommunications were conceived.
"Hello, Central?"
Author: Michèle Martin
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Published: 1991
Total Pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780773508309
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn most studies of technological development, women are portrayed as passive victims of new technology. In contrast, in "Hello, Central?" Michèle Martin reveals the significant impact women had on the development of telephone systems.
Reclaiming Conversation
Author: Sherry Turkle
Publisher:
Published: 2015
Total Pages: 450
ISBN-13: 1594205558
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn engaging look at how technology is undermining our creativity and relationships and how face-to-face conversation can help us get it back.
The Mobile Connection
Author: Rich Ling
Publisher: Elsevier
Published: 2004-06-25
Total Pages: 263
ISBN-13: 0080518931
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHas the cell phone forever changed the way people communicate? The mobile phone is used for "real time coordination while on the run, adolescents use it to manage their freedom, and teens "text to each other day and night. The mobile phone is more than a simple technical innovation or social fad, more than just an intrusion on polite society. This book, based on world-wide research involving tens of thousands of interviews and contextual observations, looks into the impact of the phone on our daily lives. The mobile phone has fundamentally affected our accessibility, safety and security, coordination of social and business activities, and use of public places. Based on research conducted in dozens of countries, this insightful and entertaining book examines the once unexpected interaction between humans and cell phones, and between humans, period. The compelling discussion and projections about the future of the telephone should give designers everywhere a more informed practice and process, and provide researchers with new ideas to last years.*Rich Ling (an American working in Norway) is a prominent researcher, interviewed in the new technology article in the November 9 issue of the New York Times Magazine. *A particularly "good read", this book will be important to the designers, information designers, social psychologists, and others who will have an impact on the development of the new third generation of mobile telephones. *Carefully and wittily written by a senior research scientist at Telenor, Norway's largest telecommunications company, and developer of the first mobile telephone system that allowed for international roaming.
The Great Indian Phone Book
Author: Assa Doron
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2013-04-02
Total Pages: 368
ISBN-13: 0674074270
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 2001, India had 4 million cell phone subscribers. Ten years later, that number had exploded to more than 750 million. Over just a decade, the mobile phone was transformed from a rare and unwieldy instrument to a palm-sized, affordable staple, taken for granted by poor fishermen in Kerala and affluent entrepreneurs in Mumbai alike. The Great Indian Phone Book investigates the social revolution ignited by what may be the most significant communications device in history, one which has disrupted more people and relationships than the printing press, wristwatch, automobile, or railways, though it has qualities of all four. In this fast-paced study, Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey explore the whole ecosystem of the cheap mobile phone. Blending journalistic immediacy with years of field-research experience in India, they portray the capitalists and bureaucrats who control the cellular infrastructure and wrestle over bandwidth rights, the marketers and technicians who bring mobile phones to the masses, and the often poor, village-bound users who adapt these addictive and sometimes troublesome devices to their daily lives. Examining the challenges cell phones pose to a hierarchy-bound country, the authors argue that in India, where caste and gender restrictions have defined power for generations, the disruptive potential of mobile phones is even greater than elsewhere. The Great Indian Phone Book is a rigorously researched, multidimensional tale of what can happen when a powerful and readily available technology is placed in the hands of a large, still predominantly poor population.
Social Impact of Mobile Phones in the Digital Age
Author: C. P. Kumar
Publisher: C. P. Kumar
Published:
Total Pages: 73
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Social Impact of Mobile Phones in the Digital Age" is a thought-provoking exploration of the profound influence that mobile phones have had on our society. This book delves into the various aspects of the social consequences brought about by the mobile revolution. From the transformation of communication methods to the redefinition of relationships in the digital era, each chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of mobile phones on different facets of our lives. It examines the breaking of geographical barriers, the rise of social media, the shaping of identity, the power of online platforms for community building, the dynamics of family bonds, the complexities of love and romance in the digital era, the dark side of connectivity including cyberbullying and online harassment, the delicate balance between privacy and surveillance, the implications for mental health, the role of mobile phones in education and learning, the challenges of work-life balance, the potential for civic engagement and activism, the intergenerational relationships shaped by mobile technology, and offers a glimpse into the future of mobile technology and its anticipated social shifts in an increasingly connected world. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the complex interplay between mobile phones and society in the digital age.
Out of Touch
Author: Michelle Drouin
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2022-02-01
Total Pages: 285
ISBN-13: 0262046679
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA behavioral scientist explores love, belongingness, and fulfillment, focusing on how modern technology can both help and hinder our need to connect. A Next Big Idea Club nominee. Millions of people around the world are not getting the physical, emotional, and intellectual intimacy they crave. Through the wonders of modern technology, we are connecting with more people more often than ever before, but are these connections what we long for? Pandemic isolation has made us even more alone. In Out of Touch, Professor of Psychology Michelle Drouin investigates what she calls our intimacy famine, exploring love, belongingness, and fulfillment and considering why relationships carried out on technological platforms may leave us starving for physical connection. Drouin puts it this way: when most of our interactions are through social media, we are taking tiny hits of dopamine rather than the huge shots of oxytocin that an intimate in-person relationship would provide. Drouin explains that intimacy is not just sex—although of course sex is an important part of intimacy. But how important? Drouin reports on surveys that millennials (perhaps distracted by constant Tinder-swiping) have less sex than previous generations. She discusses pandemic puppies, professional cuddlers, the importance of touch, “desire discrepancy” in marriage, and the value of friendships. Online dating, she suggests, might give users too many options; and the internet facilitates “infidelity-related behaviors.” Some technological advances will help us develop and maintain intimate relationships—our phones, for example, can be bridges to emotional support. Some, on the other hand, might leave us out of touch. Drouin explores both of these possibilities.
iGen
Author: Jean M. Twenge
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2017-08-22
Total Pages: 452
ISBN-13: 1501152025
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAs seen in Time, USA TODAY, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and on CBS This Morning, BBC, PBS, CNN, and NPR, iGen is crucial reading to understand how the children, teens, and young adults born in the mid-1990s and later are vastly different from their Millennial predecessors, and from any other generation. With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today’s rising generation of teens and young adults. Born in the mid-1990s up to the mid-2000s, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person—perhaps contributing to their unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. But technology is not the only thing that makes iGen distinct from every generation before them; they are also different in how they spend their time, how they behave, and in their attitudes toward religion, sexuality, and politics. They socialize in completely new ways, reject once sacred social taboos, and want different things from their lives and careers. More than previous generations, they are obsessed with safety, focused on tolerance, and have no patience for inequality. With the first members of iGen just graduating from college, we all need to understand them: friends and family need to look out for them; businesses must figure out how to recruit them and sell to them; colleges and universities must know how to educate and guide them. And members of iGen also need to understand themselves as they communicate with their elders and explain their views to their older peers. Because where iGen goes, so goes our nation—and the world.
