Dreams of the overworked : living, working, and parenting in the digital age / Christine M. Beckman and Melissa Mazmanian.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Part I: Striving for impossible dreams. Introducing the dream(s) -- Aspiring to be the ideal worker -- Playing the perfect parent -- Working toward the ultimate body -- Part II: Why it is getting harder, The promise of technology -- Creating a spiral of expectations -- Part III: How people survive and thrive. Invisible work is real work -- Scaffolding dreams -- Building tomorrow's scaffolding -- Epilogue: steps forward -- Reflections on the project.

"We're all familiar with the pressure to be the best and to do it all. Professionals are expected to be at-the-ready; parents are told to be ever-present; and everyone is exhorted to sleep enough, eat well, and carve out 'me time.' And underwriting all of these narratives is the American myth of rugged individualism, now amplified unlike ever before by the presence and use of smart devices that seem to literally give us the power to do it all alone. Through vivid, engaging stories, The Dreams of Overworked Americans brings us into the lives of nine Southern Californian families working to manage these cultural visions. The authors argue that we must strive to live by a new metric - one that prioritizes the pleasure, necessity, and deep gratification of human (and not technological) connection"--Publisher's description.

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