Book ID: CBB093866470

Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings about Technology, from the Telegraph to Twitter (2019)

unapi

Fernandez, Luke (Author)
Matt, Susan J. (Author)


Harvard University Press


Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 472
Language: English

This wide-ranging account of our emotional responses to technologies, from the telegram to Instagram, shows that technology changes not only how we feel, but what our feelings mean.Facebook makes us lonely. Selfies breed narcissism. On Twitter and comment boards, hostility reigns. Pundits and psychologists warn us that digital technologies substantially alter our emotional states. But in this lively and surprising account, we learn that technology doesn’t just affect how we feel from moment to moment―it changes profoundly the underlying emotions themselves.Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid examines nineteenth- and twentieth-century letters, diaries, and memoirs and draws on contemporary research and interviews with Americans of different ages and backgrounds to document how our emotions have been transformed by technological change. Where we now strive to escape boredom, earlier generations saw unstructured time as an opportunity for productivity and creativity. Where loneliness is now pathologized, we once thought of solitude as virtuous. Even as we ask whether technology is making us lonelier, it is altering the meaning of loneliness.In this timely book, Luke Fernandez and Susan Matt contend that current technology has removed many of the limits on our emotional landscape. Thus we seek to be constantly stimulated, engaged, and validated, while our anger and antisocial impulses are not only unconstrained but affirmed by the digital company we keep.

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Reviewed By

Review Susan Lanzoni (2020) Review of "Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings about Technology, from the Telegraph to Twitter". American Historical Review (pp. 1928-1929). unapi

Review Martina Hessler (October 2020) Review of "Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings about Technology, from the Telegraph to Twitter". Technology and Culture (pp. 1222-1224). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB093866470/

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Authors & Contributors
Vitello, Mary
Fitsanakis, Joseph
Anable, Aubrey
Simon Torracinta
Gallerneaux, Kristen
Freis, David
Concepts
Emotions; passions
Psychology
Communication technology
Technology and culture
Broadcasting
Methods of communication; media
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
18th century
20th century, early
20th century, late
Places
United States
Great Britain
Switzerland
Germany
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