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Shades of Loneliness: Pathologies of a Technological Society, by Richard Stivers. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. 148 pp. $59.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-7425-3002-7. $17.95 paper. ISBN: 0-7425-3003-5.
Richard Stivers is an outspoken critic of technological society. In this volume, as in his 1999 book Technology As Magic, Stivers criticizes our Western infatuation with technology and technological solutions and points to what he sees as disturbing consequences of our reliance on technology. He finds much of his inspiration in the work of Jacques Ellul, in a sense attempting to bring Ellul's trenchant observations up-to-date.
In this slim volume, Stivers examines the psychological ramifications of living in a technological society. He argues that one of the main consequences of our technological civilization is a profound sense of loneliness with an increase in psychological troubles, from ADHD to...