Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Barry Brown and Oskar Juhlin, “Enjoying Machines” (MIT 2015)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Barry Brown and Oskar Juhlin, “Enjoying Machines” (MIT 2015)
When we consider the television, we think not only about how it’s used, but also it’s impact on culture. The television, tv, telly, or tube, became popular in the West in the late 1940s and early 1950s and was seen as a form of entertainment and enjoyment for the family. Other “technology” that assists with leisure include things like rubber-soled shoes, books, and other digital devices. In their new book, Enjoying Machines (MIT 2015), Barry Brown and Oskar Juhlin, both scholars in the Stockholm University Mobile Life VINN Excellence Center, the success of a particular technology can be measured by how well it creates pleasure.
The authors argue that pleasure “is fundamentally social in nature,” and that to understand how technology supports leisure it is important to “produce a more sophisticated definition” of enjoyment. To do this Brown and Juhlin embark on an ethnographic investigation of technology and enjoyment that combines the sociological study of activity and the study of human-machine interaction. Over the course of their examination, the authors are careful to consider both the positives – enjoyment – and negatives – addiction- in relation to devices. Ultimately, Enjoying Machines offers a model of enjoyment useful for better understanding how to design useful machines.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
View all episodes
By New Books Network
5
22 ratings
When we consider the television, we think not only about how it’s used, but also it’s impact on culture. The television, tv, telly, or tube, became popular in the West in the late 1940s and early 1950s and was seen as a form of entertainment and enjoyment for the family. Other “technology” that assists with leisure include things like rubber-soled shoes, books, and other digital devices. In their new book, Enjoying Machines (MIT 2015), Barry Brown and Oskar Juhlin, both scholars in the Stockholm University Mobile Life VINN Excellence Center, the success of a particular technology can be measured by how well it creates pleasure.
The authors argue that pleasure “is fundamentally social in nature,” and that to understand how technology supports leisure it is important to “produce a more sophisticated definition” of enjoyment. To do this Brown and Juhlin embark on an ethnographic investigation of technology and enjoyment that combines the sociological study of activity and the study of human-machine interaction. Over the course of their examination, the authors are careful to consider both the positives – enjoyment – and negatives – addiction- in relation to devices. Ultimately, Enjoying Machines offers a model of enjoyment useful for better understanding how to design useful machines.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
More shows like New Books in Technology
View all
This American Life
90,971 Listeners
Radiolab
43,882 Listeners
Freakonomics Radio
31,987 Listeners
The Book Review
3,996 Listeners
New Books in Philosophy
110 Listeners
New Books in History
215 Listeners
New Books in Military History
160 Listeners
New Books in Sociology
49 Listeners
New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
31 Listeners
New Books in Islamic Studies
30 Listeners
EconTalk
4,265 Listeners
Conversations with Tyler
2,455 Listeners
New Books in Psychoanalysis
189 Listeners
New Books in African American Studies
165 Listeners
New Books in Environmental Studies
25 Listeners
New Books in American Studies
30 Listeners
New Books in Intellectual History
60 Listeners
Science Weekly
422 Listeners
The Daily
112,049 Listeners
Today in Focus
987 Listeners
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
9,958 Listeners
MIT Technology Review Narrated
262 Listeners
People I (Mostly) Admire
2,074 Listeners
Huberman Lab
29,170 Listeners
The Ezra Klein Show
15,845 Listeners