Books For This Course
(1) Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
About the Author:
Sherry Turkle studies the relationship between people and technology. One of Turkle's lifelong passions is our relationships with objects. Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT and the founder (2001) and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self.
Book description:
Alone Together, argues that we are at a point of decision and opportunity. Technology now invites us to lose ourselves in always-in mobile connections and even in relationships with inanimate creatures that offer to "stand in" for the real. In the face of all this, technology offers us the occasion to reconsider our human values, and reaffirm what they are. Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But, the author argues, this relentless connection leads to a new solitude. As technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. Alone Together is the result of Turkle's nearly fifteen-year exploration of our lives on the digital terrain. Based on hundreds of interviews, it describes new unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, parents, and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community, intimacy, and solitude.
(2) InvestiDate: How to Investigate Your Date.
About the author:
Maria Coder, a former crime and general assignment reporter, InvestiDate teaches daters how to investigate their dates using modern day scenarios. A member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a professional organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting, Maria is committed to empowering men and women to know what they're getting themselves into; and to know when to get out.
Book description:
InvestiDate: How to Investigate Your Date is a fun, tongue-in-cheek, secret weapon-like book that arms men and women with tools to maneuver through this minefield called love. All with the 007-mission to steer clear of physical danger, financial ruin, and emotional harm. Daters of all ages will learn step-by-step how to:
Conduct criminal checks, Verify employment, Gauge marital status, Create a Date-a-Base, Scour property records, And much, much more
Written By: Helen Choe