The Glass Cage Audiobook by Nicholas Carr
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Title: The Glass Cage Subtitle: Automation and Us Author: Nicholas Carr Narrator: Jeff Cummings Format: Unabridged Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins Language: English Release date: 09-29-14 Publisher: Brilliance Audio Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 316 votes Genres: Science & Technology, Technology

Publisher's Summary: At once a celebration of technology and a warning about its misuse, The Glass Cage will change the way you think about the tools you use every day. In The Glass Cage, bestselling author Nicholas Carr digs behind the headlines about factory robots and self-driving cars, wearable computers and digitized medicine, as he explores the hidden costs of granting software dominion over our work and our leisure. Even as they bring ease to our lives, these programs are stealing something essential from us. Drawing on psychological and neurological studies that underscore how tightly peoples happiness and satisfaction are tied to performing hard work in the real world, Carr reveals something we already suspect: shifting our attention to computer screens can leave us disengaged and discontented. From nineteenth-century textile mills to the cockpits of modern jets, from the frozen hunting grounds of Inuit tribes to the sterile landscapes of GPS maps, The Glass Cage explores the impact of automation from a deeply human perspective, examining the personal as well as the economic consequences of our growing dependence on computers. With a characteristic blend of history and philosophy, poetry and science, Carr takes us on a journey from the work and early theory of Adam Smith and Alfred North Whitehead to the latest research into human attention, memory, and happiness, culminating in a moving meditation on how we can use technology to expand the human experience.

Members Reviews: A MODERN LUDDITE "The Glass Cage", written by Harvard alumnus Nicholas Carr, ironically places him in the shoes of an uneducated English textile artisan of the 19th century, known as a Luddite. Luddites protested against the industrial revolution because machines were replacing jobs formerly done by laborers. Just as the Luddites fomented arguments against mechanization, Carr argues automation creates unemployment, diminishes craftsmanship, and reduces human volition. Unquestionably, the advent of automation is traumatic but elimination of repetitive industrial labor by automation is as much a benefit to civilization as the industrial revolution was to low wage workers spinning textile frames. There is no question that employment was lost in the industrial revolution; just as it is in the automation age, but jobs have been and will continue to be created as the world adjusts to this new stage of productivity. Carr carries the Luddite argument a step further by inferring a minds full potential may only be achieved through a conjunction of mental and physical labor. Carr posits the loss of physical ability to make and do things diminishes civilization by making humans too dependent on automation. This period of the worlds adjustment is horrendously disruptive. It is personal to every parent or person that cannot feed, clothe, and house their family or them self because they have no job. Decrying the advance of automation is not the answer. Making the right political decisions about how to help people make the transition is what will advance civilization.

Bereft of Comparisons to Non-Automated Systems Any additional comments? I work for a home automation company (Control4), so I eagerly wanted a well-grounded view of the problems of automation. Instead, Carr's book wound up being pretty thin stew. Carr's major flaw is a lack of critical thinking.