ABSTRACT

New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman declared the modern age in which we live as the ’age of distraction’ in 2006. The basis of his argument was that technology has changed the ways in which our minds function and our capacity to dedicate ourselves to any particular task. Others assert that our attention spans and ability to learn have been changed and that the use of media devices has become essential to many people’s daily lives and indeed the impulse to use technology is harder to resist than unwanted urges for eating, alcohol or sex.

This book seeks to portray the see-saw like relationship that we have with technology and how that relationship impacts upon our lived lives. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives that cross traditional subject boundaries we examine the ways in which we both react to and are, to an extent, shaped by the technologies we interact with and how we construct the relationships with others that we facilitate via the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) be it as discreet online only relationships or the blending of ICTs enabled communication with real life co present interactions.

chapter |15 pages

Introduction

Digital Media Usage Across the Life Course
ByPaul G. Nixon, Rajash Rawal, Andreas Funk

chapter 1|13 pages

The Internet through the ages

ByWilliam H. Dutton, Bianca C. Reisdorf

chapter 2|13 pages

Singularity

A double bind?
ByRajash Rawal, Paul G. Nixon

chapter 3|8 pages

Citizenship in the virtual public sphere

Reasonableness as a modus vivendi for life online
ByAndreas Funk

chapter 4|17 pages

Birth through the digital womb

Visualizing prenatal life online
ByYukari Seko, Katrin Tiidenberg

chapter 5|17 pages

Digital by default

Growing into your digital footprint
ByVanessa P. Dennen

chapter 6|12 pages

“That's so unfair!”

Navigating the teenage online experience
ByAbigail Phillips

chapter 7|11 pages

Living social

Comparing social media use in your 20s and 30s
ByNatalie Pennington

chapter 8|14 pages

Blurring boundaries

Social media and boundary maintenance at midlife
ByKelly Quinn

chapter 9|11 pages

Retrospective narratives about life with anxiety

Considering the role of the Internet for sufferers across the life course
ByCatherine Brooks

chapter 10|14 pages

Older adults and social media

Foreshadowing challenges of the digital future?
ByKelly Quinn

chapter 11|14 pages

Googling grannies

How technology use can improve health and well-being in aging populations
ByElizabeth Yost, Vicki Winstead, Ronald W. Berkowsky, Shelia R. Cotten

chapter 12|12 pages

Physical death in the digital age

ByStine Gotved

chapter 13|17 pages

On deathcasting

Alone together on the edge of death
ByYukari Seko