Trapped in the Net [Paperback]

Gene I. Rochlin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 1998

Voice mail. E-mail. Bar codes. Desktops. Laptops. Networks. The Web. In this exciting book, Gene Rochlin takes a closer look at how these familiar and pervasive productions of computerization have become embedded in all our lives, forcing us to narrow the scope of our choices, our modes of control, and our experiences with the real world. Drawing on fascinating narratives from fields that range from military command, air traffic control, and international fund transfers to library cataloging and supermarket checkouts, Rochlin shows that we are rapidly making irreversible and at times harmful changes in our business, social, and personal lives to comply with the formalities and restrictions of information systems.

The threat is not the direct one once framed by the idea of insane robots or runaway mainframes usurping human functions for their own purposes, but the gradual loss of control over hardware, software, and function through networks of interconnection and dependence. What Rochlin calls the computer trap has four parts: the lure, the snare, the costs, and the long-term consequences. The lure is obvious: the promise of ever more powerful and adaptable tools with simpler and more human-centered interfaces. The snare is what usually ensues. Once heavily invested in the use of computers to perform central tasks, organizations and individuals alike are committed to new capacities and potentials, whether they eventually find them rewarding or not. The varied costs include a dependency on the manufacturers of hardware and software--and a seemingly pathological scramble to keep up with an incredible rate of sometimes unnecessary technological change. Finally, a lack of redundancy and an incredible speed of response make human intervention or control difficult at best when (and not if) something goes wrong. As Rochlin points out, this is particularly true for those systems whose interconnections and mechanisms are so deeply concealed in the computers that no human being fully understands them.

The complete text of Trapped in the Net is available online at http://pup.princeton.edu

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Computers have opened up vast opportunities to millions of people, but dependence on computers has taken away options as well. Our means of living and working become restricted by the way we have our computer systems designed. Gene Rochlin takes a thoughtful look at the unexpected trade-offs that come with a wired society, such as the inability of many customer service and reservations people to correct simple problems because of the way their computers force them to work, or some airplanes where electronics provide more safety and precision but at the cost of losing a pilot's manual override should the system fail. Rochlin raises a convincing warning about both over-reliance and the loss of basic operational options in our lives. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

". . . computerization is leading us into pretty dire straits. In financial markets, warp-speed automated trading creates opportunities for fraud and moves us further away from a stable investment climate. In the office, computers promise efficiency, but bring fragmented knowledge and reduced autonomy to workers. There's worse news. Pilots in the 'glass cockpits' of modern airplanes have too much data to interpret, and nuclear power plant operators are less likely to have an intuitive feel for things going wrong 'on the floor'. Most sobering of all is the discussion of automation and the military." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 310 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (July 27, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691002479
• ISBN-13: 978-0691002477
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,117,101 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top Notch Work, November 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Trapped in the Net (Hardcover)

Despite a title and a cover designed to grab the demographic who reads Wired magazine, this book is one of the sanest, most well-reasoned and well-researched books on the sociology of computing that I have ever read. To my mind, the book easily places Rochlin among the ranks of Langdon Winner and Jacques Ellul. While 'gurus' like Esther Dyson and Sherry Turkle continue to churn out fluff books about the way computing is 'revolutionizing' our lives, Rochlin returns to a quaint little practice some people used to call 'research'. As a computer systems engineer, I have been in the industry long enough to see the casual contempt that most technologists have for the user communities they serve, and I appreciate Rochlin's nuanced efforts to give historical context to these attitudes. Ours is an industry full of pampered whiners who inherited an intolerance for accountability and self-scrutiny from the think-tank darlings of the 50s and 60s, as Rochlin shows. This critique will not be a welcome one for many, and Rochlin will be accused of Luddism. But such a claim laid against a man who was a physicist for a decade is ridiculous. Rochlin not only exposes the irresponsibility of attitudes in the developer community, but also provides a welcome tonic to the hyperbole and snake-oil claims made about digital productivity gains and intelligent machines. If you are a responsible technologist and not simply another zealot who prays to the false totems of AI and the 'digital revolution', you will breathe a sigh of relief that finally SOMEONE wrote this book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Curiously surprising., June 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Trapped in the Net (Hardcover)

Although the title causes one to think of certain films involving certain speedy actresses, the subtitle, "The Unanticipated Consequences of Computerization," sets a tone more like that of the book itself.

Working from the perspectives of both the natural and social sciences, Rochlin proposes the interesting idea that our great reliance upon computers and computerized artifacts has significant consequences outside of equipment failure or the deskilling of labor.

Although the organization of the book is somewhat poor, I consider the text a must for anyone interested in the overall relationship between technology and human life

5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A grouch book with no solutions, October 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Trapped in the Net (Paperback)

This book belongs in the genre of what I call Grouch Books: extensive laments about costs and consequences of technology, but with no attempts at syntheses or solutions. At every turn, the author paints a "no exit" vision of the internet: if it's freewheeling and unregulated, it's "chaotic" and "disorganized"; where it's centralized, it is overbearing and freedom-robbing. The author makes it seem as though the people concerned with hardware and software development are thoughtless, greedy, naive, or some combination. Any hint of libertarian ideals in the shakers and movers of digital culture is dismissed by Rochlin as naive and illusory, and every tendency of this culture is, in his vision, toward loss of humanity and the replacement of art with artifice. This book is single-track thinking at its worst. And to anyone who has experienced the benefits of digital culture and design, the complaining tone grows tiresome and monotonous. On those very rare occasions when he begrudges some possible benefits of the internet, Rochelin immediately qualifies them out of existence. The increased information made available by the internet, for example, is seen as all right for those who use it for "social development," but not for "conversation and entertainment" -- as if mere conversation had nothing to do with social development. If readers want to read about the costs and consequences of technology, they would be far better advised to go through a book such as Neil Postman's *Technopoly.* While just as grim in his assessment of the current state of affairs, Postman has a much greater range, and at least has the intellectual stamina to propose a solution.