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Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance Kindle Edition

by Karen Levy (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 13 ratings
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A behind-the-scenes look at how digital surveillance is affecting the trucking way of life

Long-haul truckers are the backbone of the American economy, transporting goods under grueling conditions and immense economic pressure. Truckers have long valued the day-to-day independence of their work, sharing a strong occupational identity rooted in a tradition of autonomy. Yet these workers increasingly find themselves under many watchful eyes. Data Driven examines how digital surveillance is upending life and work on the open road, and raises crucial questions about the role of data collection in broader systems of social control.

Karen Levy takes readers inside a world few ever see, painting a bracing portrait of one of the last great American frontiers. Federal regulations now require truckers to buy and install digital monitors that capture data about their locations and behaviors. Intended to address the pervasive problem of trucker fatigue by regulating the number of hours driven each day, these devices support additional surveillance by trucking firms and other companies. Traveling from industry trade shows to law offices and truck-stop bars, Levy reveals how these invasive technologies are reconfiguring industry relationships and providing new tools for managerial and legal control—and how truckers are challenging and resisting them.

Data Driven contributes to an emerging conversation about how technology affects our work, institutions, and personal lives, and helps to guide our thinking about how to protect public interests and safeguard human dignity in the digital age.

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  1. Print length
    234 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Princeton University Press
  5. Publication date
    December 6, 2022
  6. File size
    22901 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Leveraging compelling ethnographic fieldwork into the dynamics at play in the trucking sector, Levy brilliantly reveals how our collective fantasies about the future of automation are naive. This book invites readers to grapple with how technology and surveillance reconfigure work in subtle and profound ways. Data Driven is a must-read for both those who think AI is our salvation and those who see automation as the devil.”―danah boyd, author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

“Truckers were the first to experience working for an algorithm rather than a human boss. With grace and insight, Karen Levy chronicles their struggles to maintain dignity in the face of constant surveillance while reminding us of the algorithmic future that is coming for all of us.”―Julia Angwin, author of Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance

“Data Driven is both a thorough and thoughtful examination of surveillance and an entertaining page-turner. Based on years of interviews and analysis, this book is a remarkable interdisciplinary achievement by a uniquely talented and humane researcher.”―Frank Pasquale, author of The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

About the Author

Karen Levy is a faculty member in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University and associated faculty at Cornell Law School. She is a New America Fellow. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B3R3VC6G
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press (December 6, 2022)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 6, 2022
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 22901 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 234 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 13 ratings

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Karen Levy

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
13 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

danah boyd
5.0 out of 5 stars Truckers can teach us about the future of work, regulation, and technology
Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2023
Verified Purchase
Have you ever seen a tractor trailer going at a snail's pace on a highway in perfectly good weather? This was one of those mysteries that Karen Levy solved for me.

Trucking is one of the largest and most important industries in the United States. And yet, as a piece of crucial infrastructure that enables the distribution of food and other goods, it is also often invisible. Even more invisible are the weird policies, practices, and technologies that regulate trucking and truckers.

Central to Levy's story are a series of surveillance technologies that monitor truckers as they move about the country. Like many workers, truckers are surveilled by their employers to monitor their actions. But truckers are also surveilled "for their own good" to ensure that they are compliant with safety laws that prohibit truckers from being on the road for too many hours. Unfortunately, in practice, this means that truckers often get stuck in gnarly situations that reveal how the system is broken. (Hint: the slow truckers are trying not to trip their monitoring systems while trying to get to a safe place to stop.)

Drawing on deep ethnographic work, Levy shines a light on what trucking looks like today. Far from the 1950s fantasy of freedom on the road, today's truckers are monitored, tracked, and often pushed to the edge by systems that are purportedly there to help trucking be safer. This books helps us see how and why industries like trucking aren't going to be magically remedied by technology (or regulation).
3 people found this helpful
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@BobbyGvegas
5.0 out of 5 stars A fine piece of scholarship, wonderfully written.
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2023
Verified Purchase
Just finished this book. Loved it. Highly recommended. I cannot recall a wasted sentence or paragraph. Chapter 7 in particular is worth the price (implications of AI and driverless trucking). Cornell is lucky to have this young woman on its faculty.
6 people found this helpful
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Susan Ricke
5.0 out of 5 stars husband loves it
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2023
Verified Purchase
My husband is a trucker and he is actually reading this.
One person found this helpful
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Thomas
2.0 out of 5 stars Has "Data" in the title, but not in the book. Interesting anecdotes.
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2023
I am really interested in the area of research, and enjoyed some of the anecdotes and perspective, but for a book with the word Data in the title, there is an astounding lack of data in the pages. Perhaps the only shred of data was that the federal electric monitoring device mandate has not improved safety metrics. The author makes up for the lack of data with plenty of adjectives and adverbs to stretch out the number of words/pages by 10x what it needed to be.
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