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The organizational scheme of The Culture of Efficiency: Technology in Everyday Life demonstrates
how technology touches every aspect of our lives, from being born, eating, and connecting; to working, playing, and resting;
through the way we speed up, multitask, and displace; to our needs to create balance, breathe, and renew. When Kleinman uses
the term “sustainability” as a metaphor to “promote environmental, societal, and human health long-term,”
she is leading us toward the realization that we have the hope of controlling technology, rather than technology controlling
us (p. xiii). Perhaps because of the positive nature of the book’s direction, the essays within are, for the most part,
filled with hope and optimism. Each author explains how, as we uncover the impact of technologies and their social uses, we
become smarter consumers, thinkers, and theorists. In her astute conclusion to The Culture of Efficiency, Kleinman
identifies how the cultural transformation of contemporary life challenges us to be mindful of the consequences of reckless
obeisance to technology and activities influenced by the presence of technology. She wisely urges us to make informed decisions
about how we use technology, and how we think of the contradictions of living in a more technologically driven society, but
she also understands that there is a moral imperative to put human beings ahead of technological innovation and cultural pressure
to continually speed up the pace and think (and act) as technological artifacts ourselves.
How do we make judgments
about human behavior in relation to the constant drive for more technology, in a culture in which we are often prompted to
continually move forward at an ever-faster pace, and never look back? Or more specifically, what must we learn to create a
sustainable balance between people, technology, and the tensions between the two? My answer is that our ability to think of
time and to reflect on the meaning of how we spend our time can go a long way toward nurturing ourselves and maintaining the
balance that can so easily get out of whack.
-From the Afterword by Jarice Hanson
Professor of Communication, University of Massachusetts, and
Verizon Chair in Telecommunications, Temple University
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