Power Button

A History of Pleasure, Panic, and the Politics of Pushing

Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Technology, Engineering, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science
Cover of the book Power Button by Rachel Plotnick, The MIT Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Rachel Plotnick ISBN: 9780262347518
Publisher: The MIT Press Publication: August 31, 2018
Imprint: The MIT Press Language: English
Author: Rachel Plotnick
ISBN: 9780262347518
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication: August 31, 2018
Imprint: The MIT Press
Language: English

Push a button and turn on the television; tap a button and get a ride; click a button and “like” something. The touch of a finger can set an appliance, a car, or a system in motion, even if the user doesn't understand the underlying mechanisms or algorithms. How did buttons become so ubiquitous? Why do people love them, loathe them, and fear them? In Power Button, Rachel Plotnick traces the origins of today's push-button society by examining how buttons have been made, distributed, used, rejected, and refashioned throughout history. Focusing on the period between 1880 and 1925, when “technologies of the hand” proliferated (including typewriters, telegraphs, and fingerprinting), Plotnick describes the ways that button pushing became a means for digital command, which promised effortless, discreet, and fool-proof control. Emphasizing the doubly digital nature of button pushing—as an act of the finger and a binary activity (on/off, up/down)—Plotnick suggests that the tenets of precomputational digital command anticipate contemporary ideas of computer users.

Plotnick discusses the uses of early push buttons to call servants, and the growing tensions between those who work with their hands and those who command with their fingers; automation as “automagic,” enabling command at a distance; instant gratification, and the victory of light over darkness; and early twentieth-century imaginings of a future push-button culture. Push buttons, Plotnick tells us, have demonstrated remarkable staying power, despite efforts to cast button pushers as lazy, privileged, and even dangerous.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Push a button and turn on the television; tap a button and get a ride; click a button and “like” something. The touch of a finger can set an appliance, a car, or a system in motion, even if the user doesn't understand the underlying mechanisms or algorithms. How did buttons become so ubiquitous? Why do people love them, loathe them, and fear them? In Power Button, Rachel Plotnick traces the origins of today's push-button society by examining how buttons have been made, distributed, used, rejected, and refashioned throughout history. Focusing on the period between 1880 and 1925, when “technologies of the hand” proliferated (including typewriters, telegraphs, and fingerprinting), Plotnick describes the ways that button pushing became a means for digital command, which promised effortless, discreet, and fool-proof control. Emphasizing the doubly digital nature of button pushing—as an act of the finger and a binary activity (on/off, up/down)—Plotnick suggests that the tenets of precomputational digital command anticipate contemporary ideas of computer users.

Plotnick discusses the uses of early push buttons to call servants, and the growing tensions between those who work with their hands and those who command with their fingers; automation as “automagic,” enabling command at a distance; instant gratification, and the victory of light over darkness; and early twentieth-century imaginings of a future push-button culture. Push buttons, Plotnick tells us, have demonstrated remarkable staying power, despite efforts to cast button pushers as lazy, privileged, and even dangerous.

More books from The MIT Press

Cover of the book The Encultured Brain by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book Consumer Neuroscience by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book Hanan al-Cinema by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book All and Nothing by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book Distributed Algorithms by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book Aesthetics Equals Politics by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book Undone Science by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book Sonic Warfare by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book The Systemic Image by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book Designing an Internet by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book The Vanishing Middle Class by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book From X-rays to DNA by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book An Engine, Not a Camera by Rachel Plotnick
Cover of the book Applied State Estimation and Association by Rachel Plotnick
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy