Virtually Amish

How the Amish have adopted certain digital tools in ways that allow them to work and live according to their own value system. The Amish are famous for their disconnection from the modern world and all its devices. But, as Lindsay Ems shows in Virtually Amish, Old Order Amish today are selectively e...

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מחבר ראשי: Ems, Lindsay
פורמט: Online
שפה:אנגלית
יצא לאור: The MIT Press 2022
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גישה מקוונת:ONIX_20220621_9780262369381_50
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author Ems, Lindsay
author_browse Ems, Lindsay
author_facet Ems, Lindsay
author_sort Ems, Lindsay
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description How the Amish have adopted certain digital tools in ways that allow them to work and live according to their own value system. The Amish are famous for their disconnection from the modern world and all its devices. But, as Lindsay Ems shows in Virtually Amish, Old Order Amish today are selectively engaging with digital technology. The Amish need digital tools to participate in the economy—websites for ecommerce, for example, and cell phones for communication on the road—but they have developed strategies for making limited use of these tools while still living and working according to the values of their community. The way they do this, Ems suggests, holds lessons for all of us about resisting the negative forces of what has been called “high-tech capitalism.” Ems shows how the Amish do not allow technology to drive their behavior; instead, they actively configure their sociotechnical world to align with their values and protect their community's autonomy. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two Old Order Amish settlements in Indiana, Ems explores explicit rules and implicit norms as innovations for resisting negative impacts of digital technology. She describes the ingenious contraptions the Amish devise—including “the black-box phone,” a landline phone attached to a device that connects to a cellular network when plugged into a car's cigarette lighter—and considers the value of human-centered approaches to communication. Non-Amish technology users would do well to take note of Amish methods of adopting digital technologies in ways that empower people and acknowledge their shared humanity.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-846162024-03-28T18:41:49Z Virtually Amish Ems, Lindsay Other Nonconformist and Evangelical Churches Media studies thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies::JBCT3 Media studies: advertising and society How the Amish have adopted certain digital tools in ways that allow them to work and live according to their own value system. The Amish are famous for their disconnection from the modern world and all its devices. But, as Lindsay Ems shows in Virtually Amish, Old Order Amish today are selectively engaging with digital technology. The Amish need digital tools to participate in the economy—websites for ecommerce, for example, and cell phones for communication on the road—but they have developed strategies for making limited use of these tools while still living and working according to the values of their community. The way they do this, Ems suggests, holds lessons for all of us about resisting the negative forces of what has been called “high-tech capitalism.” Ems shows how the Amish do not allow technology to drive their behavior; instead, they actively configure their sociotechnical world to align with their values and protect their community's autonomy. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two Old Order Amish settlements in Indiana, Ems explores explicit rules and implicit norms as innovations for resisting negative impacts of digital technology. She describes the ingenious contraptions the Amish devise—including “the black-box phone,” a landline phone attached to a device that connects to a cellular network when plugged into a car's cigarette lighter—and considers the value of human-centered approaches to communication. Non-Amish technology users would do well to take note of Amish methods of adopting digital technologies in ways that empower people and acknowledge their shared humanity. 2022-06-21T09:08:50Z 2022-06-21T09:08:50Z 2022 book ONIX_20220621_9780262369381_50 9780262369381 9780262543637 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/84616 eng Acting with Technology application/octet-stream Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11792.001.0001 The MIT Press The MIT Press 10.7551/mitpress/11792.001.0001 10.7551/mitpress/11792.001.0001 ae0cf962-f685-4933-93d1-916defa5123d 9780262369381 9780262543637 The MIT Press 208 Cambridge open access
spellingShingle Other Nonconformist and Evangelical Churches
Media studies
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies::JBCT3 Media studies: advertising and society
Ems, Lindsay
Virtually Amish
title Virtually Amish
title_full Virtually Amish
title_fullStr Virtually Amish
title_full_unstemmed Virtually Amish
title_short Virtually Amish
title_sort virtually amish
topic Other Nonconformist and Evangelical Churches
Media studies
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies::JBCT3 Media studies: advertising and society
topic_facet Other Nonconformist and Evangelical Churches
Media studies
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies::JBCT3 Media studies: advertising and society
url ONIX_20220621_9780262369381_50
work_keys_str_mv AT emslindsay virtuallyamish