Unwired

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

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.

Autorentext
Gaia Bernstein is the Technology, Privacy and Policy Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Institute for Privacy Protection, and Co-Director of the Gibbons Institute of Law Science and Technology at Seton Hall University School of Law. She writes, teaches, and lectures on subjects at the intersections of law, technology, health, and privacy. Professor Bernstein developed a nationally recognized outreach program on technology overuse for school-aged children and their parents. She is also a mother of three children who grew up in the era of smartphones, screens, and social media.

Zusammenfassung
Instead of blaming users for technology addiction and offering self-help measures, Unwired shifts responsibility to technology companies. Through examining the battles against tobacco, junk food, and privacy, it accessibly describes the legal action we can take to pressure governments and the technology industry to re-design products and spaces.

Inhalt
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.