Ezra's Bookshelf

Unwired

by Gaia Bernstein · 249 pages · ~4.5 hrs

Science & TechnologySociety & Culture

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Gaia Bernstein, a law professor who studies technology policy, challenges the assumption that our time online reflects free choice. Drawing on research from psychology, neuroscience, and sociology, she shows how technology companies design products to maximize engagement through techniques that exploit cognitive vulnerabilities. The comparison to tobacco is deliberate: just as cigarette companies engineered addiction while claiming consumers chose to smoke, tech companies optimize for compulsive use while celebrating user agency. Bernstein examines proposed solutions—digital literacy education, parental controls, time-limit apps—and finds them insufficient against corporate resources devoted to capture attention. She argues that only government regulation can level the playing field. The book reviews regulatory options, from design mandates to advertising restrictions to duty-of-care laws. Bernstein addresses objections about free speech and innovation while arguing that regulation has successfully balanced competing interests in other domains. For readers concerned about their own technology use or their children's, Bernstein provides both diagnosis and concrete policy proposals.

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