The push of a button, the flip of a s explores the big impact of these sim What you need to know: •
UWM English professor Jason Puskar’s new book examines the history of buttons and binary switches and their impact on society.
•
His book delves into the origins of each word, the evolution of buttons and switches, how children use these devices, the nuclear button, and more.
•
Puskar’s book urges its audience to consider how these devices have changed us. Though buttons and switches have made life undeniably easier, are there costs to convenience?
To read this article, chances are you had to first press a button to turn your computer on. You may have double-clicked your mouse button to open a web browser, pressed keyboard buttons to type your email password, and clicked the mouse again to open the link to this story. How many buttons did you press to be able to read these words? How many buttons do you press in a single day? “I counted one day, and I pushed 30,000 buttons or switches in a single day,” said Jason Puskar, a UWM professor of English and the author of the new book, The Switch: An Off and on History of Digital Humans. The book, published earlier this year, traces the history of buttons and switches and the enormous impact these simple devices have had on humanity. The book covers an eclectic range of subjects. Puskar admits that it’s impossible to write a truly comprehensive history of buttons and switches; they’re too ubiquitous. But, he said, he enjoyed “following his nose” to find subjects for different sections of his book. From determining the origin of our terminology for switching; to exploring childhood play with buttons; to tracing the histories of keyboard keys, remote controls, and the nuclear button, Puskar’s work asks his audience to think about how these gadgets have shaped humanity’s lens of the world. Here are some of the things you should know about Puskar’s book, buttons, and binary switches. 1. Where do the words come from? Puskar is an English professor, so naturally, he started the book with the definition of the words. You could argue – and Puskar does in his book – that buttons and switches have been in use since the days of the ancient Greeks. But our modern term “button” hails from the days of the telegraph. It was then that people first began to use the term to refer to a piece of technology, rather than just as a clothing fastener. “It was borrowed from the French word bouton, which (means) something that ‘butts out,’” Puskar explained. “It could be a little hook, a decorative end of a curtain rod. Eventually, those things that butt out started to get used in more mechanically interactive ways.
6 • IN FOCUS • January, 2024
