Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era

In this statistic-filled polemic, Hayes, a freelance writer, attacks technological progress as a fomenter of isolation and alienation. Focusing on Silicon Valley, he asks if the new technology can be said to have made its citizens' existence ``better, more convenient, more comfortable'' when quality of life has suffered. Workers are turning increasingly to drugs (``By 1987,'' Hayes maintains, ``the citizens of San Jose spent $50 million each year--or over $700 for each man, woman and child--on illegal drugs'') and the divorce rate is the highest in the nation (``Nearly 50 percent of Silicon Valley fathers said that their jobs, not their families, were of primary importance''). The industry has created a new type of itinerant laborer who job-hops and is stalked by ``a notorious loneliness . . . the Silicon Syndrome.'' Hayes suggests no solutions except for a half-hearted concluding paragraph in which workers are urged to unite. But the book's dry presentation is unlikely to spur readers to such action. (June)