Needy Media: How Tech Gets Personal

What makes our portable, networked personal media devices – smartphones, tablets, smartwatches – so irresistible? Reacting to our touch, voice, or gaze, seizing and keeping our attention with sounds, vibrations, and screen prompts, these objects construct an animated intimacy that builds trust and emotional dependence.

Needy Media explores how features such as face recognition, awareness sensors, and touchscreens have developed and intersected, tying them to key concepts of psychology, langu...