Jason Farman is a professor of American Studies and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Maryland, College Park. An internationally recognized scholar on technology, design, and media culture, he is the award-winning author of Delayed Response: The Art of Waiting from the Ancient to the Instant World, which was supported by an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology. His earlier book, Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and Locative Media, won the 2012 Book of the Year Award from the Association of Internet Researchers and continues to shape research in digital culture and design. His upcoming book examines how consumer desire has been systematically engineered through design, shaping our culture of disposability.
A sought-after voice on the impact of technology and design, Farman’s expertise has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, NPR, and 99% Invisible, among others. His writing and research uncover how digital media, industrial design, and consumer culture shape human experience—often in ways we barely notice. As a faculty member of the Immersive Media Design Program and the Human-Computer Interaction Lab, he bridges historical inquiry with emerging technologies, exploring how the design of everyday objects influences not just our behaviors but our values and expectations.
Beyond academia, Farman is a public intellectual dedicated to reshaping conversations on technology and culture. He has advised on digital infrastructure, taught workshops on design and innovation, and collaborated with organizations shaping the future of media and user experience. His leadership in higher education includes directing the Design Cultures & Creativity program and serving as a Faculty Associate with Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.
Through his writing, research, and public engagement, Farman challenges us to rethink our relationship with the technologies we use daily—how they shape our sense of time, agency, and identity in an era of endless upgrades.
I am an award-winning author of two books and a professor of American Studies and Immersive Media Design at the University of Maryland, College Park. I am also the Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Affiliate Faculty with the Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL), the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), the departments of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies; and the College of Information. I was a Faculty Associate with Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society from 2019-2020.
My most recent book, Delayed Response: The Art of Waiting from the Ancient to the Instant World (Yale University Press, 2018), was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology. It received positive reviews in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Australian Book Review, and the Marginalian. It was written about in The Atlantic, the New York Times, GQ, ELLE Magazine, Vox, the Washington Post, National Geographic and others. I was a featured guest on radio interviews and podcasts such as 99% Invisible, Deeply Human (BBC), various NPR interviews, and international radio shows such as Late Night Live (ABC Australia) and Afternoons with Jesse Mullins (Radio New Zealand). My first book, Mobile Interface Theory (Routledge, 2012), won the Book of the Year Award from the Association of Internet Researchers and came out in a second edition in 2021. I am the editor of two books: Foundations of Mobile Media Studies (Routledge, 2016) and The Mobile Story (Routledge, 2014). I have had bylines in The Atlantic, Atlas Obscura, Aeon/Psyche, Management Today, and others.
I have been publishing on media history and design for the past 15 years and was the Director of the Design Cultures and Creativity Program at the University of Maryland from 2014-2022. Prior to joining the University of Maryland, I was an Assistant Professor and Director of the Digital Technology & Culture Program at Washington State University. I received my Ph.D. from the School of Theater, Film, and Television at UCLA.