To Tech or Not to Tech

Posted on June 14, 2017

by Jan C

Let’s face it; many of us are hooked on technology. If you’ve set clear boundaries for your children and find yourself sneaking screen time like a smoker in winter, then you may have an issue. So, normalize your experience by reading a book (ok, maybe a screen) about how humans and technology interface (couldn’t help myself.)

Library Books

The Startup by Doree Shafrir
The Startup: A Novel by Doree Shafrir

A billion-dollar app developer, an ambitious young journalist, and a burned-out literary mom are swept up by a viral scandal that complicates their personal relationships in uproarious ways.

Textrovert by Lindsey Summers
Textrovert by Lindsey Summers

It’s bad enough when high-school senior Keeley grabs the wrong phone while leaving her small town’s end-of-summer fair. It’s even worse when she discovers that the phone she now has belongs to the obnoxious, self-centered Talon and that he’s just left for football camp … with her phone. Reluctantly, the two agree to forward messages for a week. And as Keeley gets to know Talon, she starts to like him. Keeley learns there’s more to Talon than the egocentric jock most people see. There’s more to Keeley, too. Texting Talon, she can step out of the shadow of her popular twin brother. Texting Talon, she can be the person she’s always wanted to be.

Valley of the Gods by Alexandra Wolfe
Valley of the Gods by Alexandra Wolfe

Each year, young people from around the world go to Silicon Valley to hatch an idea, start a company, strike it rich, and become powerful and famous. in The Valley of the Gods, Wolfe follows three of these upstarts who have “stopped out” of college and real life to live and work in Silicon Valley in the hopes of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk.

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-up Bubble by Dan Lyons
Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-up Bubble by Dan Lyons

For 25 years Dan Lyons was a leading tech journalist—until the Friday his Newsweek boss called. His job? Gone. Fifty years old with two young kids, Lyons was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. For years he’d seen people strike gold in the start-up boom. Why not him? One tech company, flush with $100 million, offered a pile of stock options. What could go wrong?

Irresistible: the Rise of Addictive Technology & the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter
Irresistible: the Rise of Addictive Technology & the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter

An urgent and expert investigation into behavioral addiction, the dark flipside of today’s unavoidable digital technologies, and how we can turn the tide to regain control. Behavioral addiction may prove to be one of the most important fields of social, medical, and psychological research in our lifetime. The idea that behaviors can be being addictive is new, but the threat is near universal. Experts are just beginning to acknowledge that we are all potential addicts.

The Knockoff: A Novel by Lucy Sykes & Jo Piazza
The Knockoff: A Novel by Lucy Sykes & Jo Piazza

When Imogen returns to work after a summer leave, the Glossy offices are barely recognizable. Eve, fresh out of Harvard Business School, has fired the ‘gray hairs,’ put the managing editor in a supply closet, and hired a bevy of manicured assistants who text and tweet their way through meetings. Wildly out of her depth, Imogen must channel her inner geek and engage Eve in a battle royal to save both the magazine and her career.

American Girls: Social Media & the Secret Life of Teenagers by Nancy Jo Sales
American Girls: Social Media & the Secret Life of Teenagers by Nancy Jo Sales

Instagram. Whisper. Yik Yak. Vine. YouTube. Kik. Ask.fm. Tinder. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media. What it is doing to an entire generation of young women is the subject of award-winning Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales’s riveting and explosive American Girls.

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