IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 24

towards time: feeling harried is not
inherent in contemporary life or an
automatic consequence of technology. Instead, it may be better to
feel positive about being extremely
busy, just as thinking that stress is
beneficial can actually change the
body's response to stress [4]. When
people have greater understanding
of the factors that affect their understandings and feelings about time
then, as in the cases of advertise-

References

ments, happiness, and expertise,
they may be in a better position to
forge their own paths. In this, the
insights in Pressed for Time are a
valuable contribution.

[1] T. Wu, The Attention Merchants: The Epic
Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. Knopf,
2016.
[2] S. Lyubomirsky, The Myths of Happiness:
What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't;
What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does.
Penguin, 2013.

Reviewer Information

[3] A. Ericsson and R. Pool, Peak: Secrets
from the New Science of Expertise. Bodley
Head, 2016.

Brian Martin is Honorary Professorial
Fellow in the School of Humanities
and Social Inquiry at the University
of Wollongong. Email: bmartin@uow
.edu.au.

[4] K. McGonigal, The Upside of Stress: Why
Stress Is Good for You (and How to Get
Good at It). Vermilion, 2015.

Katina Michael

Not So Fast
Not So Fast: Thinking Twice about Technology. By Doug Hill. Univ.
of Georgia Press, Oct. 15, 2016, 240 pp.

n 2014, I had the
good fortune of meeting Doug Hill in the
f lesh at the first
IEEE Conference on
Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century
(http://21stcenturywiener.org/). It
was one of the highlights of the conference for me. I was attracted to
Doug because of his outward simplicity but at the same time deep inner
profundity. It did not take long for us
to get talking of our mutual interests.
For instance, we've both been influenced greatly by the French philosopher, sociologist and lay theologian
Jacques Ellul [1], popularly known
for The Technological Society (1964)
[2], [3]. Hill is an investigative journalist by training, an award winning
writer [4], with a specialization on the
philosophy of technology.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2016.2703180
Date of publication: 8 June 2017

In Not So Fast, Hill wastes no time
in getting his point across. Chapter 1
opens: "Let me begin by stating the
obvious: We live in an era of technological enthusiasm." In his book, Hill
attempts the impossible and pulls it
off. He hits us with the hard facts,
one after the other. And we can
either take his word for it, or refute
him page after page, until we realize, that the evidence is overwhelmingly stacked against us. In effect,
Hill tells us "where we are at" with all

this techno-deluge, even if we don't
wish to admit it. He makes a point
of highlighting the technological utopianism we have begun to believe and
dream about, only to bring us down
crashing the very next moment with
the startling realities.
The book contains quotes from
people we all look up to in the tech
and business world, representing
thousands of hours of research to
craftily support the central thesis:
"not so fast." Hill proclaims in no

"Lively, fast moving, always entertaining, 'Not So Fas' offers a grand overview of the
extravagant hopes and dire warnings that accompany the arrival of powerful new
technologies. Blending the key ideas of classic and contemporary thinkers, Doug Hill
explores the aspirations of those who strive for the heavens of artifice and those who
find the whole enterprise a fool's errand. This is the most engaging, readable work on
the great debates in technology criticism now available and a solid contribution to that
crucial yet unsettling tradition."
-Langdon Winner, author of Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a
Theme in Political Thought; Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

∕

june 2017

http://www.edu.au http://www.21stcenturywiener.org/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017