Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas by Natasha Dow Sch?ll (Englis

Description: FREE SHIPPING UK WIDE Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow SchÜll Takes readers into the intriguing world of machine gambling, an increasingly popular and absorbing form of play that blurs the line between human and machine, compulsion and control, risk and reward. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Recent decades have seen a dramatic shift away from social forms of gambling played around roulette wheels and card tables to solitary gambling at electronic terminals. Slot machines, revamped by ever more compelling digital and video technology, have unseated traditional casino games as the gambling industrys revenue mainstay. Addiction by Design takes readers into the intriguing world of machine gambling, an increasingly popular and absorbing form of play that blurs the line between human and machine, compulsion and control, risk and reward. Drawing on fifteen years of field research in Las Vegas, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schull shows how the mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling pulls players into a trancelike state they call the "machine zone," in which daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness fade away. Once in the zone, gambling addicts play not to win but simply to keep playing, for as long as possible--even at the cost of physical and economic exhaustion. In continuous machine play, gamblers seek to lose themselves while the gambling industry seeks profit.Schull describes the strategic calculations behind game algorithms and machine ergonomics, casino architecture and "ambience management," player tracking and cash access systems--all designed to meet the markets desire for maximum "time on device." Her account moves from casino floors into gamblers everyday lives, from gambling industry conventions and Gamblers Anonymous meetings to regulatory debates over whether addiction to gambling machines stems from the consumer, the product, or the interplay between the two. Addiction by Design is a compelling inquiry into the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance, offering clues to some of the broader anxieties and predicaments of contemporary life. At stake in Schulls account of the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance is a blurring of the line between design and experience, profit and loss, control and compulsion. Back Cover "A stunning portrayal of technology and the inner life. Searing, sobering, compelling: this is important, first-rate, accessible scholarship that should galvanize public conversation." --Sherry Turkle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other "A fascinating, frightening window into the world of gambling in Las Vegas and the technological innovations that deliberately enhance and sustain the zone--the odd, absorbed state for which extreme machine gamblers yearn. An astute and provocative look at addiction and its complex moral, social, and emotional entanglements." --T. M. Luhrmann, Stanford University "At the heart of Schlls book is the interplay between the players and the machine; between the players and the machine manufacturers; between the players and the math program; and between the players and the zone that the machines help produce. A tour de force that changes the dialogue on gambling addiction." --Henry Lesieur, author of The Chase: Career of the Compulsive Gambler "Schlls clear and dramatic writing style is itself addictive. One is drawn into the ways in which the interactions among the different stakeholders lead to players experience of being drawn into a zone where they remain until all resources are gone. This is a must-read narrative that points to the many variants of screen addiction possible today." --Don Ihde, author of Bodies in Technology "This gripping, insightful, and poignant analysis of machine gambling offers a kind of object lesson in the intensified forms of consumption that computer-based technologies enable. An exemplary case of the way in which close, critical investigation of specific sites of capitalism can provide a deeper understanding of both intimate experience and widespread socioeconomic arrangements." --Lucy A. Suchman, author of Human-Machine Reconfigurations "Schll offers a provocative and important study of the imperative some people feel to lose themselves in a machine. The ethnography is rich and deep, shedding original light on the significance of addiction and gambling in American culture. The story told in the book is absolutely riveting." --Emily Martin, author of Bipolar Expeditions Author Biography Natasha Dow Schll is associate professor in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Table of Contents Acknowledgments vii Note on Informant Anonymity xiii Introduction: Mapping the Machine Zone 1 Part One: Design 1. Interior Design for Interior States: Architecture, Ambience, and Affect 35 2. Engineering Experience: The Productive Economy of Player- Centric Design 52 3. Programming Chance: The Calculation of Enchantment 76 Part Two: Feedback 4. Matching the Market: Innovation, Intensification, Habituation 107 5. Live Data: Tracking Players, Guiding Play 137 6. Perfect Contingency: From Control to Compulsion 166 Part Three: Addiction 7. Gambled Away: Liquidating Life 189 8. Overdrive: Chasing Loss, Playing to Extinction 210 Part Four: Adjustment 9. Balancing Acts: The Double Bind of Therapeutics 239 10. Fix upon Fix: Recipes for Regulating Risk 257 Conclusion: Raising the Stakes 290 Notes 311 References 385 Index 42 Review Winner of the 2013 Sharon Stephens First Book Prize, American Ethnological Society Honorable Mention for the 2013 Gregory Bateson Prize, The Society for Cultural Anthropology "Natasha Dow Schull, an anthropologist at MIT, has written a timely book. Ms Schull has spent two decades studying the boom in casino gambling: the layout of its properties, the addicts and problem gamblers who account for roughly half its revenue in some places, and the engineering that goes into its most sophisticated products. Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas reads like a combination of Scientific Americans number puzzles and the blue Book of Alcoholics Anonymous."--Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times "Addiction by Design is a nonfiction page-turner. A richly detailed account of the particulars of video gaming addiction, worth reading for the excellence of the ethnographic narrative alone, it is also an empirically rigorous examination of users, designers, and objects that deepens practical and philosophical questions about the capacities of players interacting with machines designed to entrance them."--Laura Noren, PublicBooks "Schull adds greatly to the scholarly literature on problem gambling with this well-written book... Applying an anthropological perspective, the author focuses especially on the Las Vegas gambling industry, seeing many of todays avid machine gamblers as less preoccupied with winning than with maintaining themselves in the game, playing for as long as possible, and entering into a trance-like state of being, totally enmeshed psychologically into gaming and totally removed from the ordinary obligations of everyday life... The book offers a most compelling and vivid picture of this world."--Choice Prizes Winner of Sharon Stevens First Book Prize 2013 Long Description Recent decades have seen a dramatic shift away from social forms of gambling played around roulette wheels and card tables to solitary gambling at electronic terminals. Slot machines, revamped by ever more compelling digital and video technology, have unseated traditional casino games as the gambling industrys revenue mainstay. Addiction by Design takes readers into the intriguing world of machine gambling, an increasingly popular and absorbing form of play that blurs the line between human and machine, compulsion and control, risk and reward. Drawing on fifteen years of field research in Las Vegas, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schull shows how the mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling pulls players into a trancelike state they call the "machine zone," in which daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness fade away. Once in the zone, gambling addicts play not to win but simply to keep playing, for as long as possible--even at the cost of physical and economic exhaustion. In continuous machine play, gamblers seek to lose themselves while the gambling industry seeks profit.Schull describes the strategic calculations behind game algorithms and machine ergonomics, casino architecture and "ambience management," player tracking and cash access systems--all designed to meet the markets desire for maximum "time on device." Her account moves from casino floors into gamblers everyday lives, from gambling industry conventions and Gamblers Anonymous meetings to regulatory debates over whether addiction to gambling machines stems from the consumer, the product, or the interplay between the two. Addiction by Design is a compelling inquiry into the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance, offering clues to some of the broader anxieties and predicaments of contemporary life. At stake in Schulls account of the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance is a blurring of the line between design and experience, profit and loss, control and compulsion. Review Quote Winner of the 2013 Sharon Stephens First Book Prize, American Ethnological Society Honorable Mention for the 2013 Gregory Bateson Prize, The Society for Cultural Anthropology The Atlantic Editors "The Best Book I Read This Year" for 2013, chosen by senior editor Alexis C. Madrigal Details ISBN0691160880 Pages 456 Publisher Princeton University Press Year 2014 ISBN-10 0691160880 ISBN-13 9780691160887 Format Paperback Imprint Princeton University Press Subtitle Machine Gambling in Las Vegas Place of Publication New Jersey Country of Publication United States DEWEY 362.25 Language English Media Book Edition Description New in Paper Short Title ADDICTION BY DESIGN Translated from English UK Release Date 2014-05-11 Publication Date 2014-05-11 NZ Release Date 2014-05-11 US Release Date 2014-05-11 Illustrations 29 halftones. Author Natasha Dow SchÜll Alternative 9780691127552 Audience Tertiary & Higher Education AU Release Date 2014-07-20 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! 30 DAY RETURN POLICY No questions asked, 30 day returns! 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