false 7024745 434609 143159 0060570059 9780060570057 149 <![CDATA[Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172150478m/143159.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172150478s/143159.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143159.Better_Off_Flipping_the_Switch_on_Technology 3.60 512 What is the least we need to achieve the most? With this question in mind, MIT graduate Eric Brende flipped the switch on technology. He and his wife, Mary, ditched their car, electric stove, refrigerator, running water, and everything else motorized or "hooked to the grid," and spent eighteen months living in a remote community so primitive in its technology that even the Amish consider it antiquated.

Better Off is the story of their real-life experiment to see whether our cell phones, wide-screen TVs, and SUVs have made life easier -- or whether life would be preferable without them. This smart, funny, and enlightening book mingles scientific analysis with the human story to demonstrate how a world free of technological excess can shrink stress -- and waistlines -- and expand happiness, health, and leisure.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.]]> 82717 3.61 560 171 2004 5 1 true Thu Dec 28 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sun Sep 30 05:14:13 -0700 2007 Fri Jan 16 07:52:35 -0800 2009 Eric Brende's desire to actively question a lot of things that most of us in modern America take for granted as "the way things are," particularly with regard to technology. Very much along the lines of Neil Postman in Technopoly and elsewhere, Brende r...more...]]>