The Geek's Chihuahua: Living with Apple (Forerunners: Ideas First)

At dinnertime: check. At a traffic light: check. In bed at the end of the day: check. In line at the coffee shop: check. In The Geeku2019s Chihuahua, Ian Bogost addresses the modern love affair of u201cliving with Appleu201d during the height of the companyu2019s market influence and technology dominance. The ubiquitous iPhone and its kin saturate our lives, changing everything from our communication to our posture. Bogost contrasts the values of Appleu2019s massive success in the twenty-first century with those of its rise in the twentieth. And he connects living with Apple with the phenomenon of u201chyperemploymentu201d-the constant overwork of todayu2019s technological life that all of us now experience. Bogost also reflects on the new potential function-as well as anxiety and anguish-of devices like the Apple Watch. We are tethered to our devices, and, as Bogost says: thatu2019s just life-anxious, overworked, and utterly networked life. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.