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Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate
Drawing on his own expertise in the humanities and on the Web, Steven Johnson not only demonstrates how interfaces - those buttons, graphics, and words on the computer screen through which we control information - influence our daily lives, but also tracks their roots back to Victorian novels, early cinema, and even medieval urban planning. The result is a lush cultural an...more
Paperback, 272 pages
Published
October 7th 1999
by Basic Books
(first published 1997)
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Some technology books hold up for years after the technologies they discuss have become obsolete. This is not one of those books. Johnson has some interesting theories and paradigms for how we should conceptualize our digital world but you don't really need to read the whole book to learn about them.
Interface Culture is quite postmodern in that it compares the digital shift to various shifts in media and communication throughout history and literature. I took away some interesting c...more
Interface Culture is quite postmodern in that it compares the digital shift to various shifts in media and communication throughout history and literature. I took away some interesting c...more
English/Portuguese
This rating is only for the brazilian portuguese edition of this book: avoid it. I gave mine copy.
The original version I rated with 3 stars.
It is a very basic book, even int its category. The only chapter I feel ok is the last one: agents.
Essa estrela é apenas para a edição brasileira deste livro: evite-a, a não ser que você não tenha acesso a outra edição.
Para a versão original eu dei 3 estrelas.
É um livro muito básico, mesmo pa...more
This rating is only for the brazilian portuguese edition of this book: avoid it. I gave mine copy.
The original version I rated with 3 stars.
It is a very basic book, even int its category. The only chapter I feel ok is the last one: agents.
Essa estrela é apenas para a edição brasileira deste livro: evite-a, a não ser que você não tenha acesso a outra edição.
Para a versão original eu dei 3 estrelas.
É um livro muito básico, mesmo pa...more
Apesar de pouco usuais, as metáforas que Johnson utiliza tanto em Cultura da Interface foram bem recebidas. Ele acredita que quando CI foi lançado, em 1997, havia a impressão de que alguém precisava traduzir o discurso sobre o mundo ciber em um contexto mais tradicional e literário. Se falava muito em "mudanças de paradigma" e deixar para trás o mundo impresso e os elementos de continuidade quase não eram destacadas. "Como meu livro fazia essa ponte entre os dois mundos, ele acabo...more
There were any number of these "technology and culture" books churned out in the 1990's for a mass market, but this one is a keeper. On the one hand, Johnson is insightful and restrained enough to age well; many of his contemporaries look ridiculous in retrospect. On the other hand, the book simultaneously acts as a fascinating historical artifact. There are any number of intriguing possibilities that never amounted to anything. Don't be scared away by the year of publication: this...more
SaraQT
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Anyone with even a passing interest in how we think about computers.
I am loving this book and have fantasies about teaching a class using this as a textbook. It's like opening a time capsule from 1997 with wonderful surprises inside, such as the very first computer mouse and the views of computers in the 1940s, 1980s, and 1997. To put this book in some context - google.com and "blog" didn't even appear until a few months after this book was published, which makes his points about visual metaphor in the modern interface even more interesting, i think. A...more
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i thought that i will learn how today's technology change our life. but all i got is confusing term between technology and sociology. not that much entertaining
Should be on the reading list of every new media course.
Although dated for a book on emerging technology (1997), it did present some interesting thoughts on the evolution of the computer interface. I believe this was his first book, and a doctoral thesis at that. His later work is much more refined.
Johnson's background in technology and literature sounds like a potentially interesting mix. It's not often you find an analysis of James Joyce and Wired magazine on the same page.
...it was interesting but i didn't make it through. ah well.
...it was interesting but i didn't make it through. ah well.
With the acceleration of technology change, this text is already a bit antiquated. However, understanding the metaphors lying behind the now ubiquitous computer interfaces shall provide wisdom for decades.
This book reinforced my personal belief that the interface is the most important aspect of any technology. It was a little surprising to me to how weight Johnson puts on the importance of the interface in society.
Aguarde...
An interesting discussion of the influence of computers and the internet on our society.
Trying to understand the base of new media theory...
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Steven Johnson is the author of the bestsellers Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, Everything Bad Is Good For You, and Mind Wide Open, as well as Emergence and Interface Culture. He is the founder of a variety of influential websites—most recently, outside.in—and writes for Time, Wired, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Marin County, Califor...more
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