Cellphone

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.

A captivating look at the history of mobile communication

Paul Levinson's eight nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), and Cellphone (2004), have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into ten languages. New New Media will be published in the summer of 2009. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel)., Borrowed Tides (2001), The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2003), and The Plot To Save Socrates (2006). His short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards. Paul Levinson appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News," "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" (PBS), "Nightline" (ABC), and numerous national and international TV and radio programs. He reviews the best of television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s "Top 10 Academic Twitterers" in 2009. Paul Levinson is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.