Left to Our Own Devices: Outsmarting Smart Technology to Reclaim Our Relationships, Health, and Focus
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Unexpected ways that individuals adapt technology to reclaim what matters to them, from working through conflict with smart lights to celebrating gender transition with selfies.
We have been warned about the psychological perils of technology: distraction, difficulty empathizing, and loss of the ability (or desire) to carry on a conversation. But our devices and data are woven into our lives. We can’t simply reject them. Instead, Margaret Morris argues, we need to adapt technology creatively to our needs and values. In Left to Our Own Devices, Morris offers examples of individuals applying technologies in unexpected ways—uses that go beyond those intended by developers and designers. Morris examines these kinds of personalized life hacks, chronicling the ways that people have adapted technology to strengthen social connection, enhance well-being, and affirm identity.
Morris, a clinical psychologist and app creator, shows how people really use technology, drawing on interviews she has conducted as well as computer science and psychology research. She describes how a couple used smart lights to work through conflict; how a woman persuaded herself to eat healthier foods when her photographs of salads garnered “likes” on social media; how a trans woman celebrated her transition with selfies; and how, through augmented reality, a woman changed the way she saw her cancer and herself. These and the many other “off-label” adaptations described by Morris cast technology not just as a temptation that we struggle to resist but as a potential ally as we try to take care of ourselves and others. The stories Morris tells invite us to be more intentional and creative when left to our own devices.
Publisher : MIT Press (May 21, 2024)
Language : English
Paperback : 186 pages
ISBN-10 : 026255206X
ISBN-13 : 978-0262552066
Item Weight : 9.6 ounces
Dimensions : 6 x 0.47 x 9 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book interesting and well-researched. It offers a refreshing view on gadgets and sparks reflections on how to improve them.
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7 reviews for Left to Our Own Devices: Outsmarting Smart Technology to Reclaim Our Relationships, Health, and Focus
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Tommaso W. Bertolotti, PhD –
A much-needed, positive reflection on how to challenge everyday technology
Most contemporary reflections on the topic go down to how technologies challenge our lives: this book is about how to challenge technology.Morrisâ book offers presents a very interesting slideshow of original uses of technologies and devices, most of them improving the lives of their users in unforeseen ways. In a world ruled by unnecessary fear, this is a great book to redeem technophobes. It is also a very thought provoking book, sparking reflections on how to improve our own interactions with technology â and to discover new ones.The book is a compelling read, but can also be imagined as a textbook for any class dealing with technology and its usage.
Liz –
Refreshing view on all our gadgets!
I really enjoyed this book – as a parent and gadget-lover, we get so many messages about the downsides of screen time – refreshing to read such a positive outlook on these everyday uses of technology! Some humorous anecdotes and lots of examples of increased self aweness and social communication. Love the insight on how apps are being used differently than intended. Although not sure I still want to buy a smart scale 🙂
nevertoomanysparkles –
Interesting well researched.
Interesting, well researched and well written. Lots of stories about people using technology to have BETTER lives with MORE connection to others. Opposite of the status quo mantra of getting away from your phone and technology.
RAH –
This truly changed the way I see myself and my potential to help others through tools I already use.
Reading this changed the way I see myself and my potential to help others through tools I already use every day like Twitter. My mother, grandmother, and I, of markedly different tech generations but equally skeptical, stepped back from reading this with inspiration and hope.
Judith Wrubel –
A Wonderful Exploration of the Creative Uses of Smart Technology
The main title charms with its clever turn of phrase, but the sub-title âoutsmarting smart technologyâ nails the central premise of the book. Technology can never be as smart as people, because people live in a contextualized world of concerns, connections, and commitments. Margaret Morris demonstrates this principle in a series of case studies illustrating how people had developed clever and sometimes quite surprising adaptations of devices and apps to fit their own needs.The smart technology Morris explores covers a large territoryâfrom apps for therapy, tracking mood, tracking biological data, playing games, and managing smart lights, to emojis, GIFs, and more. She doesnât recount anecdotes. She presents case studies that explore the context of the appâs adaptation. the usersâ life situation, their goals in creating a personalized use, and the outcomes. In most cases, peopleâs goals were relational. Even apps created for an individualâs sole use, like a therapy program, were used in interpersonal interactions.Left To Our Own Devices is an important corrective to the reigning negative view of the effect our digital devices on our lives. We hear that email is a time sink. Social media isolates us instead of forming connections. Even simply having our phones near us while we work affects our ability to focus. The issue is far more complex and deserves a fuller view. Morris has found that through creative adaptations of smart technology people have empowered themselves to manage difficult aspects of their lives and to communicate with others in personalized ways. She inspires readers to borrow some of the unexpected uses of digital technology or to develop their own.
Vicente Valjalo –
Great insights about our relationship with technology
Dr. Morris book is not only a well written and thoroughly researched text, it has something rarely found in books and articles, this is great insights into the human condition. Our relationship with technology and the meaning of a good life are so intertwined in Dr. Morris work that is easy to jump from the detailed description of a commonly shared experience into the deep meaning of what that experience means for the task of living. The book is filled with examples and reflections that enrich our understanding of the human condition, as well as how technology has an impact beyond good and evil on the hard task of being alive. After this, for therapists the book is a guideline not to recipes and todo lists, but to the active building of an attitude towards listening beyond technology into the journey of creating a life through technology. We must learn to see and hear beyond the device into the human within the device. This book is a huge lesson on this insightful and innovative way of relating with patients through technology. A must read. Great book.
Dr. M –
Unique viewpoint on interpersonal technology
Margie Morris is an unusual and insightful combination: a clinical psychologist and a technologist. While others might see the rise of the internet of things, pervasive monitoring, social media, and dating apps in terms of technological progress or of technological dystopia, Morris sees them as opportunities for psychological growth, health, and intervention â provided we are able to adapt to them and customize them in to make them suit our purposes. Going beyond more established ideas of technology for self-reflection and self-help, she grounds her discussion in the social worlds of the people she profiles and the social uses to which they mindfully brought technologies into their lives. The book is not about pervasive effects of technology on society, or of typical âusersâ. The people in the case studies come across as generally affluent technophiles (though sometimes in relationships with the non-techy) who have the time, education, and interest to get involved in buying smart home products or engaging in Quantified Self communities. But by looking at the creative appropriation and âoff label usesâ of recent and emerging technologies by these early adopters and enthusiasts, we can see potential for new and more healthy ways of personalizing and domesticating off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all technologies, and perhaps building new infrastructures that give more autonomy to all of use having to live with them.