On March 26, the DIGS Lab will host a book talk by Stephen Monteiro titled How Tech Got Needy: Episodes in Device Intimacy. This event is co-hosted by the Media History Research Centre, Milieux Institute, and the Department of Communication Studies (Concordia University).

No registration required.

About the talk: Networked personal media devices construct an animated intimacy fostering user trust and emotional dependence. Viewing this development through an historical eye, this talk explores examples of object-oriented digital intimacy that emerged at the turn of the twenty-first century. Drawing from Needy Media (recently published by McGill-Queens University Press), it will consider how user-device closeness was baked into consumer electronics from 1995 to 2005 through a range of hardware and software cues. These elements collectively tapped psychological vulnerabilities toward affective impact, situating the device as a lively, but needy, presence in the life of users.

Speaker bio: Stephen Monteiro is a faculty member in Communication Studies at Concordia University. In addition to Needy Media, he is the author of The Fabric of Interface (The MIT Press) and Screen Presence (Edinburgh University Press), and the editor of The Screen Media Reader (Bloomsbury).