Eric Brende is the author of Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology. A rickshaw driver and a soap-maker in St. Louis, he holds degrees from Yale, Washburn University, and MIT and has received a citation of Excellence from the National Science Foundation and a graduate fellowship from the Mellon Foundation in the Humanities. At the insistence of his editor, he now has an email account at the local library but continues to minimize modern technology for himself and his family.