Unwired
Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies

Offers a novel solution to technology addiction through legal action to pressure the technology industry to re-design its products.

Gaia Bernstein (Author)

9781009257930, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 March 2023

248 pages
22.2 x 14.6 x 1.8 cm, 0.42 kg

'Bernstein … doubts that addicted users … can will themselves out of their habits. Instead, she argues, regulatory intervention of the supplying corporations will be necessary.' Harvard Magazine, Off the Shelf

Our society has a technology problem. Many want to disconnect from screens but can't help themselves. These days we spend more time online than ever. Some turn to self-help-measures to limit their usage, yet repeatedly fail, while parents feel particularly powerless to help their children. Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies shows us a way out. Rather than blaming users, the book shatters the illusion that we autonomously choose how to spend our time online. It shifts the moral responsibility and accountability for solutions to corporations. Drawing lessons from the tobacco and food industries, the book demonstrates why government regulation is necessary to curb technology addiction. It describes a grassroots movement already in action across courts and legislative halls. Groundbreaking and urgent, Unwired provides a blueprint to develop this movement for change, to one that will allow us to finally gain control.

Prologue
Part I. The Price of the Illusion of Control
1. Becoming the Choice-Makers
2. Addiction, Our Children, Our Bonds
3. Invisible Chains
Part II. Who Are the Choice Makers? 4. Clouds of Smoke
5. The Food Wars
6. The Privacy Phoenix
7. Lessons from Battling Titans
Part III. Fighting for Choice
8. The Art of Redesign
9. The Tools of Awareness
10. The Ground is Burning
11. The Achilles Heel
12. Acupuncture for Change
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Computer networking & communications [UT], Communications engineering / telecommunications [TJK], Technology: general issues [TB], Impact of science & technology on society [PDR], Social security & welfare law [LNTH], IT & Communications law [LNQ], International communications & telecommunications law [LBDT], Information technology industries [KNTX], Ethical issues: scientific & technological developments [JFMG], Social forecasting, future studies [JFFR]