Description
Book SynopsisInformed by the latest theoretical developments in studies of the social impacts of digital technology,
Smart-Tech Society provides an empirically grounded and conceptually informed analysis of the impacts and paradoxes of smart-technology.
While making life more convenient, smart-tech has also been associated with a loss of privacy and control over decision-making autonomy. Mark Whitehead and William Collier provide a critical analysis of the lived experience of smart-technology, presenting stories of varied social engagements with digital platforms and devices. Chapters explore the myriad contexts in and through which smart-tech insinuates itself within everyday life, the benefits it brings, and the processes through which it is being resisted. Detailed case studies explore the impacts of smart-technology across a broad range of fields including personal health, work, social life, urban management, and politics.
Presenting new empirical evidence and analytical perspectives on the relationships between humans and smart-tech, this book will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of sociology, political science, human geography, and technology studies.
Trade Review‘The pages of this book take the reader on a perceptive and revealing journey through the smart-tech society. Bringing clarity to these disorientating and far-reaching transformations, it offers guidance, understanding and an irresistible call to engage with how the future might yet be shaped.’ -- David Beer, University of York, UK
Table of ContentsContents: 1. The Smart-Tech Revolution 2. Analysing the smart-tech society 3. Prediction, personalisation, and the data self 4. Behaviour and freedom 5. The smart body—from cyborgs to the quantified self 6. Smart working and the corporation 7. Smart-tech states 8. Dumbing down—recalibrating our relations with smart technology 9. Conclusion References Index
