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Cover image for Enjoying machines
Title:
Enjoying machines
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Publication Information:
Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, 2015
Physical Description:
ix, 219 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
ISBN:
9780262028783
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Material Type
Item Category 1
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30000010343843 T14.5 B76 2015 Open Access Book Book
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Summary

Summary

An argument that pleasure is a fundamental part of why we use technology, and a framework for understanding the relationship between pleasure and technology.

The dominant feature of modern technology is not how productive it makes us, or how it has revolutionized the workplace, but how enjoyable it is. We take pleasure in our devices, from smartphones to personal computers to televisions. Whole classes of leisure activities rely on technology. How has technology become such an integral part of enjoyment? In this book, Barry Brown and Oskar Juhlin examine the relationship between pleasure and technology, investigating what pleasure and leisure are, how they have come to depend on the many forms of technology, and how we might design technology to support enjoyment. They do this by studying the experience of enjoyment, documenting such activities as computer gameplay, deer hunting, tourism, and television watching. They describe technologies that support these activities, including prototype systems that they themselves developed.

Brown and Juhlin argue that pleasure is fundamentally social in nature. We learn how to enjoy ourselves from others, mastering it as a set of skills. Drawing on their own ethnographic studies and on research from economics, psychology, and philosophy, Brown and Juhlin argue that enjoyment is a key concept in understanding the social world. They propose a framework for the study of enjoyment: the empirical program of enjoyment.


Author Notes

Barry Brown is Professor in Human Computer Interaction at the University of Stockholm and Research Director of the Mobile Life VINN Excellence Center. Oskar Juhlin is Professor in the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University and founder of the Mobile Life Vinn Excellence Center.


Reviews 1

Choice Review

Enjoying Machines is a humble, unassuming book whose title does not convey the depth and care with which its authors have written this study of happiness and pleasure. Brown and Juhlin (both, Stockholm University, Sweden) begin by giving readers a thorough, sound foundation in their discussion of the literature of pleasure and happiness. In the following chapters, the authors explore the major categorical concepts of happiness and pleasure. Within each chapter, Brown and Juhlin present findings utilizing standard ethnographic and ethnomethodological practices. There is very little technology proselytizing, and few buzzwords are strewn about. Instead of employing technology as a philosophical crutch, the authors use it to investigate more closely the concepts presented in each chapter, almost as a sociological probe to measure and reflect. It is quite surprising then that the appendix provides a much better ending to the book than the last chapter. Readers would have been better served if the appendix had been fleshed out with more detail and substance and placed before the last chapter. Overall, this book is a pleasure to read and has an impact disproportionate to its slim size. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Jeremy R Lauber, Briarcliffe College Library


Table of Contents

Acknowledgmentsp. ix
1 Why is pleasure important?p. 1
Why do we need to look at pleasure?p. 5
A programp. 9
A preview of the chaptersp. 11
2 What is enjoyment?p. 13
Pleasure is worldlyp. 16
Pleasure is a skillp. 20
Pleasuie is ordinaryp. 26
Pleasure is feltp. 31
The empirical program of enjoymentp. 36
3 Play, game, and enjoymentp. 39
Concepts of game studiesp. 40
Counter-Strike: Shooting as if it mattersp. 45
Playing with animals: Big-game huntingp. 55
Contrasting games and huntingp. 62
4 Enjoyment in the literaturep. 65
Enjoyment as an event in the brainp. 66
Happiness in economics and psychologyp. 70
The philosophy of happiness and the good lifep. 73
The fear of happiness in classic sociological writingp. 77
Psychoanalysis of the enjoyment societyp. 82
Leisure studiesp. 85
Fun in human-computer interactionp. 87
5 Pleasure in family and friendsp. 93
Locating the familyp. 97
Friendshipp. 105
Pleasures of family and friendsp. 113
6 Mobility and the flâneuring experiencep. 116
The concept of the flâneurp. 117
Tourism as enjoymentp. 122
Flaneuring and the pleasure of drivingp. 128
Technologies of flâneuringp. 135
Recovering enjoyment in mobilityp. 138
7 Mediap. 141
Television: The box at the end of the couchp. 143
Producing televised enjoyment experiencesp. 155
8 Toward a society of happinessp. 165
Designp. 168
Politics and enjoymentp. 175
Closing wordsp. 180
Appendix: Methods of enjoymentp. 183
The challenge of finding pleasurep. 184
Studying enjoymentp. 185
What to studyp. 186
Four methods and their characteristicsp. 188
Bringing the four methods togetherp. 201
Bibliographyp. 203
Indexp. 215
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