Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind
Their insights are extraordinary, their behaviors unusual. Their brains--shaped by the era of microprocessors, access to limitless information, and 24-hour news and communication--are remapping, retooling, and evolving. They're not superhuman. They're your twenty-something coworkers, your children, and your competition. Are you keeping up?
In iBrain, Dr. Gary Small, one of...more
In iBrain, Dr. Gary Small, one of...more
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published
October 14th 2008
by William Morrow
(first published October 1st 2008)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
398)
Don't bother with this book unless:
1. you are a Baby Boomer who is feeling overwhelmed with the web, and would like to commiserate with one of your own.
2. If you are internet addicted and in turn socially inept (there are a few pages of self-help advice).
Interspersed in all of this split personality pages are a few references to fMRI studies of which areas of the brain light up when we are completing internet tasks. You won't be able to pinpoint the studies, though, because the author doesn't...more
1. you are a Baby Boomer who is feeling overwhelmed with the web, and would like to commiserate with one of your own.
2. If you are internet addicted and in turn socially inept (there are a few pages of self-help advice).
Interspersed in all of this split personality pages are a few references to fMRI studies of which areas of the brain light up when we are completing internet tasks. You won't be able to pinpoint the studies, though, because the author doesn't...more
3 likes · like · see review
view 1 comment
It does have some interesting insights in the first few chapters. The author, Gary Small, was clearly introduced to computers as an adult, and speaks about their usage with the accent of an immigrant to the digital world (to borrow one of his own descriptions). Often, his description of some aspect of online culture seems just a bit "off"--he's writing about something he's observed and studied, not something in which he's a full and comfortable participant. That occasional bit of jarring drawbac...more
1 like · like · see review
I thought this was a unique look at how the human brain processes things differently - even using different areas of the brain - as a result of technology in our lives. Most of it is really interesting in a discovery-channel kind of way, but the last two chapters are so elementary that they come across as a bit condescending. (Then again the last two chapters are designed to help digital addicts and digital retards, so if you are neither of those things you can skip them.) And unfortunately the...more
This would be a useful book for seniors who are just learning how to use the internet--people the author refers to as "digital immigrants." This book contains lots of basic practical info about how to format email, use search engines effectively, etc.
The author seems to approach his topic from an "us versus them" standpoint, contrasting digital immigrants like himself with the younger crowd ("digital natives"). He suggests that people who make use of the internet are more likely to be socially...more
The author seems to approach his topic from an "us versus them" standpoint, contrasting digital immigrants like himself with the younger crowd ("digital natives"). He suggests that people who make use of the internet are more likely to be socially...more
Gary Small writes for the Wall Street Journal and Scientific American...among others...powerful teaching illustration for us all on pg. 94
The concept of this book is good, I was looking forward to reading a book discussing the development of the human brain when exposed to modern devices and stimuli. It started strong, but soon became repetitive and toward the end became pretty much a manual for the "digital immigrants" to gain a general understanding of what the "digital natives" do daily. Beyond the early parts of the book, the brain development aspects were all but thrown aside. I would recommend the first few chapters to many...more
Jun 21, 2011
Biogeek
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
perfect-for-bio-class
Another recent Kinokuniya find! Should be great to stimulate debate. The book has has two extremes ...the extremely interesting parts like the introduction of the newly-coined phrase continuous partial attention and how the middle-aged brain approaches problem solving compared to the teenager. Some good fMRI studies cited as well. But then there are the extremely bad parts ...long passages of generalizations about digital natives (does anyone else hate that term as much as I do?) and digital imm...more
The first part of this one, which described the neurological ramifications of early and prolonged exposure to technology and the lifestyle it encourages, was interesting and excellent. I was disappointed, then, to feel the book fragmenting as it moved forward until, by the end, it was slapdash and unpolished. Chapters on handling your email and coding your text messages seemed to me grossly out of place in a book that started out with serious scientific and cultural pretentions.
Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan's iBrain is a fascinating book that details how technology is changing our brains. Their main thesis is that our brains and the brains of our children are much more plastic and changeable than we have been led to believe. They differentiate between digital immigrants: people who had to learn technology such as computers and cell phones as adults, and digital natives: people who have known technology since birth.
A readable book on how technology being so entrenched in our current way of life is actively affecting our brains and therefore our generations in terms of social skills and human interaction. At first, I thought this book's prose was cheesy and not well written but I later realized this made it much more accessible to people. The bibliography is filled with great studies that support the seemingly general statements made in the book.
It sounded interesting and relevant, but I was prevented from reading beyond the first chapter by the horrendous way in which it was written. Every sentence seemed to be a factoid only vaguely connected to the others around it. It was the most poorly written non-fiction book I have ever read.
This book just didn't know what it wanted to be. It couldn't make up its mind whether it was a review of literature and case studies about how technology affects our brains or a self-help book for tech challenged Baby Boomers. In the end it got rather repetitive and then just plain boring.
This was an okay book. I was hoping for a bit more about techniques to use to help my brain deal with the huge level of static generate by today's electronic devices. What I found instead was quite a bit of material covering the symptoms of brain overload and little practical material.
Similar to The Shallows, this book discusses the potential problems that arise because of our fast-paced, information-filled, and technological environment. Unlike The Shallows, however, this author actually proposes some solutions and helpful practices.
This is an interesting book that discusses technology's impact on our brain. I liked the discussions of the pros and cons of technology's impact on our brain and behavior, and I really liked the areas where he discusses the rapid evolutionary changes that are taking place because of the exponentially faster and better technological improvements.
I didn't like the psychobabble that seemed to dominate the second half of the book. I understand that part of the book's purpose was to propose a set of...more
I didn't like the psychobabble that seemed to dominate the second half of the book. I understand that part of the book's purpose was to propose a set of...more
Takes a look at the impact of technology on our neural pathways and what this means in terms of interpersonal relations. Thought-provoking, at a minimum. Also very scary!
OK for all the information that the author managed to get into the book, however bad job on the referencing to academic articles, and too much brain surgery terminology in the book.
Insight on effects of technology on modern brain and social living...final section more appropriate for those new to modern technology.
Definitely worth a read. The outcome is that we still don't know the longterm effects of technology on the brain.
I read portions of this book when writing my Master's thesis.
Thought provoking and controversial at the same time!
Thought provoking and controversial at the same time!
well-written but I was hoping for more info/predictions on how brain evolution will play itself out.
This would have made an interesting article, but extending it into a book felt like a stretch.
If this book were a brief article, with proper citations, I could have found it more useful. It was not at all what I was expecting, which was less whining about how "digital natives" (I am really coming to hate that term) think differently than older generations, and more on the science.
I only read to the end of the fourth chapter. After so many references to the quiz to see if you are, in fact, addicted to the internet, and seeing a plethora of non-captioned drawings that vaguely illustrate th...more
I only read to the end of the fourth chapter. After so many references to the quiz to see if you are, in fact, addicted to the internet, and seeing a plethora of non-captioned drawings that vaguely illustrate th...more
Uno de los peores libros sobre tecnología que haya leído. Casi todo es basura para vender miedo.
Good overview book on cognition and brain structure. But a rather thin superficial discussion overall.
I wasn't very impressed, and I fully disagree with many of the author's claims. One of the main points that the author makes over and over again is that technology is hampering people's social skills, especially those of younger generations. I think this is a bias of perception. Younger people may have different social conventions or skills that older people don't recognize or prefer, but that doesn't mean they are less socially mature.
Real quick read, pretty interesting.
Interesting perspective.
This book is for old people who are scared of technology and big words.
Although it has bright moments (e.g., the study the author facilitated where they used FMRI's to test whether or not people's brains are affected by 5 hours on Google), I certainly would not recommend this book to anyone who already knows a thing or two about technology.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
