The Culture of Efficiency

The Culture of Efficiency: Technology in Everyday Life reveals how people are managing, exploiting, and resisting technological developments in the digital age. In this unique volume, distinguished experts from a broad range of fields candidly show how the latest technologies are being used to transform and control nitty-gritty aspects of life from conception onward and the surprising benefits and consequences. Bold and provocative, The Culture of Efficiency is for everyone concerned with efficiency and effectiveness. It offers fresh insights about social trends, practical suggestions for improving everyday life, and vital forecasts about the future of work and leisure. This is essential reading for researchers, professionals, and students in communication, sociology, education, anthropology, psychology, organizational science, operations management, marketing, gender studies, environmental studies, American studies, healthcare, and social policy. Overall, the volume offers a rich interpretation of the meaning of living in a culture of efficiency.

Author Biography

The Editor: Sharon Kleinman is Professor of Communications at Quinnipiac University. Her research focuses on the social implications of communication technologies and on issues concerning online and place-based communities. She is the editor of the critically acclaimed book Displacing Place: Mobile Communication in the Twenty-first Century (Peter Lang, 2007). She holds a B.A. in English and American literature from Brandeis University and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in communication from Cornell University.