Technology Endangers Common Sense

Probably ever since humans started to invent and use complex machinery to perform tasks, and certainly since the advent of the computer, a warning has accompanied the praise that greets each new innovation. The warning is that even though technology is a wonderful thing, it also has the potential to make people stupid. They might become incapable of doing sums with paper and pencil, or of entertaining themselves without television, or of finding their way around a city without a global positioning system. Worst of all, this novel suggests, they could become so enamored of computerized systems and the protocols that arise from them that they might not even be able to imagine scenarios caused by the malfunctioning of the technology. There is something insidious about computerization and the systems it spawns, the authors insinuate in this book. Thrilled by the promises of power and...