How Green Is Your Smartphone?

Every day we are inundated by propaganda that claims life will be better once we are connected to digital technology. Poverty, famine, and injustice will end, and the economy will be “green.” All anyone needs is the latest smartphone. 

In this succinct and lively book, Maxwell and Miller take a critical look at contemporary gadgets and the systems that connect them, shedding light on environmental risks. Contrary to widespread claims, consumer electronics and other digital technologies are made in ways that cause some of the worst environmental disasters of our time – conflict-minerals extraction, fatal and life-threatening occupational hazards, toxic pollution of ecosystems, rising energy consumption linked to increased carbon emissions, and e-waste. Nonetheless, a greener future is possible, in which technology meets its emancipatory and progressive potential. 

How Green is Your Smartphone? encourages us to look at our phones in a wholly new way, and is important reading for anyone concerned by the impact of everyday technologies on our environment.

Richard Maxwell is Professor of Media Studies at Queens College, City University of New York.

Toby Miller is Stuart Hall Professor of Cultural Studies, Universidad Autónoma de México, Cuajimalpa, and Professor in Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University London.

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