As an addiction specialist, I have mixed feelings about this book.
1. Knowing that the author is a law professor, I expected a more complex approach from a judicial point of view.
2. I haven´t learned much new stuff, but that's probably due to my own profession.
3. It´s very repetitive.
4. I Can´t shake off the feeling, that this is more about the author than about the actual problem.

I agree that the topic is important and needs serious action from authorities now. And yet, this is a very complex problem on so many levels that I´m afraid it´s simply impossible to tackle it by a swift wave of a law act.
P.S. Where is the editor? There are a lot of words that are either put together or spaced out.

In this book Gaia Bernstein rings a resounding alarm about the dangers of our growing addiction to technology. Perhaps the most explicit analogy she gives about what’s happening is likening us to frogs in the water. Like the hapless frog, we sit unaware in the slowly heating water, not realising it’s coming to the boil until it’s too late and we’re cooked.

Written in an engaging manner, Bernstein not only documents the insidious takeover of our lives by digital technology but proposes workable and innovative strategies to counter it. Awareness is the obvious first step, she points out, and while that’s growing, it’s something we prefer to ignore.

On a personal level, I know what technology has done to my capacity to focus and concentrate. As a writer, I sit at a laptop wired to the internet for many hours each day with iPad and iPhone close at hand. I feel like a dog walking down a street lined with canine scented telegraph poles. My attention span is shot. Just in drafting this review, it was impossible to write more than a paragraph or two without succumbing to the urge to check Instagram, Twitter or look up something on Google.

Bernstein shows we need to learn from history. She demonstrates in compelling prose how the wars against tobacco and obesity can be used as blueprints for taking on the technology industry. Consumer action matters and it’s nowhere more likely to be incited than in the case of harm to minors.

Children, she says, are “the achilles heel”. Parents are rightly concerned about the harmful effects on children of technology addiction, especially when they’re fighting constant battles with defiant kids about excessive smartphone use and time spent on social media and digital games instead of homework, In real-life examples of her own experiences and those of parents she's counselled Bernstein makes a strong case for this as a social dilemma with widespread repercussions if not addressed.

But she believes there is hope. As with the tobacco industry, although it took years from the time scientific evidence emerged until smoking was officially decreed a major health hazard and the harmful effects of passive as well as active smoking were acknowledged, real change was implemented and smoke-free zones in public places are now the norm.

Such real change, Bernstein contends, can only come from the bottom up. Change is possible, but individuals can’t effect it alone, it must be a collective effort. She suggests a number of strategies, such as technology free zones and the rejection of abusive designs (defined as consciously manipulative ways the technology industry constricts our autonomy). The technology industry, like the tobacco and fast-food industries, must be held to account.

“Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies” is not just topical but essential reading for all of us concerned about the many hours we spend aimlessly scrolling on our devices when we could be doing something more rewarding. More than a behavioural quirk, or even a bad habit, it's becoming an overwhelming urge against which, like addiction to alcohol or drugs, we and our children are increasingly powerless.

Thank you to Cambridge University Press for providing me with an advance review copy of the book.