Jonathan Franzen, who is famous for being the author that dared to diss Oprah, has a long piece in this month's MIT Technology Review about his relationship with technology. The author of The Corrections and several other books basically hates electronics, except for the BlackBerry. Among the things he objects to: computers released after 1992, television, and cellphones. (He repeats the old rant about people talking on their phones in the check-out line.)
It's an interesting article for one of the premier academic technology publications, which usually features articles about stuff like robotics and nanotubes.
While I don't agree with many -- O.K., most -- of Franzen's complaints, he does raise an interesting question. Do people ever stop to consider whether technology has made their life better? Ever since I bought an iPhone, I spend a lot of time messing around with little apps and gizmos on it. It's fun -- but would I be better off with my old efficient, reliable BlackBerry, which got the job done so I was free to do other things?
By Michelle Kessler andz Jess Zielinski
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