The psychology of Silicon Valley : Ethical threats and emotional unintelligence in the tech industry

Abstract

It is one of life’s more amusing truths that we very rarely find what we set out in search of—nor do we usually end up exactly where we meant to go. That is the case with almost everything in my life and, thankfully, it holds true for this book as well. Without realizing it, this work began taking shape in 2013. Like many people, I was becoming a little unnerved by the pace and scope of technology—how untested it seemed, how omnipresent and seductive. I would watch toddlers glued to iPads, parents glued to smartphones, and the rest of us chained to one device or another. I wondered what the effects would be, 20 years down the line, when it might be too late to do anything about it. A psychology nerd at heart, I was particularly worried about how these shiny little black boxes might affect our mental health and wellbeing, while the romantic in me wondered how they would change our relationships.