Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology

Title: Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology
Author: Eric Brende
ISBN: 9780060570057
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 2005
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Publisher Description:

What is the least we need to achieve the most? With this question in mind, MIT graduate Eric Brende flipped the switch on technology. He and his wife, Mary, ditched their car, electric stove, refrigerator, running water, and everything else motorized or "hooked to the grid," and spent eighteen months living in a remote community so primitive in its technology that even the Amish consider it antiquated.

Better Off is the story of their real-life experiment to see whether our cell phones, wide-screen TVs, and SUVs have made life easier -- or whether life would be preferable without them. This smart, funny, and enlightening book mingles scientific analysis with the human story to demonstrate how a world free of technological excess can shrink stress -- and waistlines -- and expand happiness, health, and leisure.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.