James E. Katz is professor of communication at the School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies at Rutgers University. The results of his research have been published in more than thirty journals, including Telecommunications Policy, Human Communications Research, Information Age, and Technology in Society.

• Introduction; I: I Social Change and Quality of Life; 1: Social and Organizational Consequences of Wireless Communication; 2: Mobile Communications: Theories, Data, and Potential Impact; 3: Attitudes toward Voice Mail and Telephone Answering Machines; 4: Corporate Culture Transformation in the Telephone Companies; II: Interpersonal Relations in a Social Context; 5: Caller-ID, Privacy, and Social Processes; 6: Understanding Communication Privacy: Unlisted Telephone Subscribers; 7: Obscene Telephone Calls to Women: Empirical and Theoretical Dimensions; 8: Gender Relations and Telephone Calls: A Survey of Obscene Telephone Calls to Males and Females; III: Social Dimensions of Telephone Service Perceptions; 9: Consumer Spending Behavior; 10: Slamming Back: Customer Choice and Retention in Local Telephone Markets; IV: Concluding Thoughts; 11: Industrial Engineering versus Individual Ingenuity

"A fine assembly of research-based observations on the complex place of the telephone in American society. James Katz's mastery of his subject shines through every chapter." - Robert K. Merton, University Professor Emeritus, Columbia University "Caller ID, cellular phones, pagers, answering machines - all reveal remarkable, often surprising sides of American behavior, analyzed expertly in Connections. James Katz shows that social science can be rigorous, relevant, and readable. A must for professionals, and a treat for those at the receiving end of our communicopia." - Edward Tenner, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, author of Why Things Bite Back