Technology and Society: Social Networks, Power, and Inequality

by Anabel Quan-Haase

From crude tools in the Stone Age to smartphones in the twenty-first century, technology has always had a pervasive role in human life. In this timely study, Anabel Quan-Haase examines the places where technology and society intersect, connecting the reality of our technological age to issues of social networks, communication, work, power, and inequality. The result is a broad yet efficient overview of the tools we use, where they come from, and how they are changing our perceptions of ourselves and the relationships we form with others.

This fully revised second edition includes a new chapter on gender and technology, increased coverage of the history of technology, classical theories, and ethical considerations throughout.

Genres: Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2012

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

We used this textbook for a sociology course relating to the Impact of Technology on Society. Several engineering programs across Canada require a course such as this as an elective.

This book was very an easy read for the course. We covered all the chapters during the course and it was easy to read a chapter a week. Our instructor was unhappy with the last chapter of the book that dealt with ethics; he stated that it was lacking in content.

As an engineering student, I found this book to use examples that were a bit outdated considering the time in which it was published. For example, the book used Blackberry as an example for several concepts; I found this odd because the company had been losing significant market share for a while.

Several concepts that are explained in this book were found in areas outside of engineering. For example, the Technology adoption life-cycle discussed in this book was also found (along with Maslow's hierarchy of needs) in my marketing textbook.

All in all, this textbook is all right. It's one of only two textbooks that I read cover-to-cover.