hedonizing technologies

Rachel P. Maines, Hedonizing Technologies: Paths to Pleasure in Hobbies and Leisure (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009) In the book Hedonizing Technologies: Paths to Pleasure in Hobbies and Leisure, author Rachel P. Maines examines how an activity such as needlework shifts from industrial production to recreation. Technologies formally associated with necessary work and productivity such as gardening, needlework, hunting, cooking, and others, have gradually evolved into recreational activities and hobbies. As a result, the technologies associated with these activities have become less efficient and more appealing as leisure activities. By examining business history and consumer demand, especially written documents, Maines argues that new technologies have allowed consumers to adopt certain activities as recreational pastimes. Maines organizes her book into five main chapters, excluding the introduction. Within the first chapter, ‘What Is a Hedonizing Technology?,’ Maines gives the reader a basic explanation of the development from necessity to hobby. What makes labor that was once essential to survival and comfort a hobby rather than work? How does something become a labor of love rather than labor itself? According to Maines, “any technology that privileges the pleasures of production over the value and/or significance of the product can be a hedonizing technology” (3). Few generalizations apply to all hedonizing technologies, but there are commonalities among them. For example, many hobbies or leisure activities share a similar characteristic: their methods and tools become “less practical as means of profitable production”, making them more attractive as leisure activities (7). Hedonizing technologies are those that evolve from technological innovations. Once the production of a product shifts to industrial methods, a consumer is “free to seek pleasure in the older handcraft technology”(8). In other words, the new technology allows the