Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology Contributor(s): Brende, Eric (Author) |
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ISBN: 0060570059 ISBN-13: 9780060570057 Publisher: Harper Perennial OUR PRICE: $17.09 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2005 Annotation: On a mission to prove that modern technological advances make lives more inconvenient and less healthy, Brende and his wife lived for 12 months among an energy-free farming community. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Technology & Engineering | History - Social Science | Agriculture & Food - Biography & Autobiography | Science & Technology |
Dewey: 303.483 |
Series: P.S. |
Physical Information: 0.7" H x 5.34" W x 8.04" (0.51 lbs) 272 pages |
Accelerated Reader Info |
Quiz #: 86079 Reading Level: 7.3 Interest Level: Upper Grades Point Value: 13.0 |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: 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. |
Contributor Bio(s): Brende, Eric: - Eric Brende has degrees from Yale, Washburn University, and MIT, and has received a Citation of Excellence from the National Science Foundation and a graduate fellowship from the Mellon Foundation in the Humanities. At the insistence of his editor, he now has an e-mail account at the local library but continues to minimize modern technology for himself and his family. Eric and Mary Brende have recently relocated to an old-town section in St. Louis, where Eric makes his living as a rickshaw driver and a soap maker. |