Category: book reviews

Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas by Natasha Dow Schüll

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an amazing work of anthropology. The amount and quality of research poured into the author’s study of machine gambling makes for a convincing account of how the casino and gambling machine industries continue to refine and perfect slot machines, video poker machines, and other electronic gambling devices in order to keep gamblers in their stools and feeding money into the machine. The odds are stacked against the average gambler in many ways beyond simply the random number generators powering the spins of reels and deals of cards. Not only does the author give us this view into the industry through technical and anecdotal details, but also offers an overview of local, national, and multi-national regulatory frameworks governing the industry: their complexity and ultimately their limitations. The discussion of lobbying activities by the industry to focus the point of responsibility for gambling on the individual using arguments from neo-liberalism and funding research to build up analysis about problem gambler’s individual psychology and predisposition rather than the role of the machines was fascinating.

The larger takeaway from the field of science, technology, and society is the revelations around how problem gambling is a co-construction between the machines and their human users. The author offers heartbreaking accounts of gamblers who can’t stop gambling, who have structured their lives around the practice, and hurt themselves and their families in the process. We readers see what it means to be truly addicted to something. The effect is a deeply humanizing account of gambling addicts.

One advisory for potential readers: this is a piece of rigorous academic scholarship, whose audience may include lay readers and policymakers, but is definitely meant for other anthropologists and science, technology, and society scholars. There are many references to philosophers and sociologists like Erving Goffman, Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, and others. This makes the book a very dense read. I appreciate the situation of the work in the academic literature but it definitely raises barriers to a broader audience. That said, the author does an excellent job of constructing a road map through the work and helping readers keep track of where they are in her argument and where threads are coming together, which really helps the accessibility. Overall, I highly recommend Addiction by Design.

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It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by danah boyd

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed danah’s book. Although I was already familiar with most of the research leading into it, I felt like I took away more insights through reflection and connection across the themes and findings. One thing that I was particularly struck by was how eager I feel to recommend the book to others in my life, others who are definitely not academics like myself, and that’s thanks to its well-thought-out structure and editing.

danah has worked hard to write a book that is not just a summary and synthesis of her research but also a resource for a multiple audiences. There is a lot of depth below the surface, but the surface is perfectly accessible. I may be biased, since I’m well-versed in the research and know danah personally, but the book seems to achieve her goal in appealing to a wide audience. And the structure of the book as a resource, which can be referenced by chapter and in many cases by sub-chapter, makes it very handy.

I believe the new takeaways from her research for me were a result of its accessible, resource-like approach. I was coaxed out of my academic shoes and into those of someone who hopes to be a parent in the not too distant future. danah’s central argument is that a lot of youth practices remain the same as previous generations even though they appear different, due to the fact that they take place through new digital media and networked publics. The most important chapter in my opinion, setting stage for this point, is the one on privacy. On page 76, danah writes, “Privacy is valuable because it is critical for personal development. As teenagers are coming of age, they want to feel as though they matter.” This speaks to me on multiple levels: scholar, future parent, and designer of civic technologies for adults and youth.

Lastly, in case it’s not obvious, “it’s complicated” is more than a reference to the nature of the networked teens’ social lives, it represents danah’s approach to the topic and goal: complicate your view of contemporary teen sociality. And she does this with quotes like the one above, wherein she offers advice through insight. Those looking for prescriptions for policy and parenting won’t find it here. Rather, the book is an invitation to improve our understanding and relationships with teens through powerful anecdotes and reflections that challenge our assumptions and current practices. Share widely!

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Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space by Jan Gehl

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Quick read full of insights into how people approach public spaces. This is understandably a classic of urban planning, and is incredibly accessible. I loved how every spread had at least one photo, and often several supporting the text with observable evidence. The book seems like a nice complement to Jane Jacobs classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, focusing more on the details of design that support the type of livable, walkable cities they both dream of.

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How to Study Public Life: Methods in Urban Design by Jan Gehl

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I thought this was going to be a methods book on Public Life studies. And it is, but that is only a small part of the book. There is description of the goals and process of public life study, and a set of case examples of how certain methods were used in actual public spaces around the world. I wish there was more detail here and more description of how many people were involved in various aspects and what some of the common pitfalls of this research tend to be. That would have made this a better methods book.

The rest of the book is occupied with celebrating and recounting the career of co-author Jan Gehl. There is an unexpected though interesting literature review of public life studies starting with Jane Jacobs up until about 2012. Each scholar and many of their books get individual treatment here with regard to their contribution to the field and where they expand on past scholars’ work. If you are interested in diving into this field, this is a go to resource.

All in all, it’s an odd book bringing together a lot of loose ends that it seems like Jan Gehl and his co-author Birgitte Svarre had been meaning to publish. The book is beautifully designed and an accessible read; I just wish it spent more time on the “how” in the title.

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Cities for People by Jan Gehl

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is an update to Jan Gehl’s classic Life Between Buildings. Readers of the earlier work will have an opportunity to review the core principles that Gehl has espoused for decades, only updated with full-color photographs from cities around the world—many of which Gehl has worked in but also with many returning from LBB—including Gehl’s obsession with Venice and the Piazza del Campo in Siena. The book does expand it’s arguments by talking about more contemporary building trends with a deep-dive to the triumphs of Gehl’s hometown of Copenhagen, particularly it’s successful increase in bicycle-friendliness.

This is the other area of expansion: Gehl adds on to his livability arguments with new sections on sustainability and healthiness, which reaffirm the needs for cities to be first and foremost for pedestrians. He also touches on developing world contexts and worries about trends there in vehicular traffic crowding out pedestrians and cyclists, making the same mistake developed countries made and are only now undoing. For urban planners and architects, there is a new “Toolbox” section at the end, which collects his principles and diagrams into a few pages for easy reference.

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