Cellphone: The Story of the World's Most Mobile Medium and How It Has Transformed Everything!

Although the Internet takes us everywhere in cyberspace, it usually requires us to be seated behind a desk. In contrast, the cellphone lets us walk through the world, fully connected. Cellphone explores the history of mobility in media-from books to cameras to transistor radios to laptops-and examines the unique impact of a device that sits in a pocket or palm, and lets us converse by voice or text. The restricting and liberating edge of accessibility transforms restaurants, public transport, automobiles, romance, literacy, parent-child relationships, war, and indeed all walks of life, trivial and profound. Like an organic cell that moves, evolves, combines with other cells, and generates, the cellphone has become a complex sparkplug of human life.

Paul Levinson's The Soft Edge and Digital McLuhan have been the subject of major articles in The New York Times and WIRED, and his science fiction novel, The Silk Code, won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Paul has published more than 100 articles on history, philosophy, and the future of communications media. He has appeared on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, the O'Reilly Factor, and dozens of television and radio shows. He is Professor and Chair of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City. His website is www.sff.net/people/paullevinson.