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7th out of 9 books
—
1 voter
Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future
How is the internet changing the way you think? That is one of the dominant questions of our time, one which affects almost every aspect of our life and future. And it's exactly what John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to more than 150 of the world's most influential minds. Brilliant, farsighted, and fascinating, Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? is an es...more
Paperback, 448 pages
Published
January 18th 2011
by Harper Perennial
(first published January 1st 2011)
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The following review was written with a certain amount of sleep deprivation. I should have waited to either write the review and/or post it. I say a few things that I think are more inflammatory than they should have been, I might or might not write a more coherent review / edit this one in the near future. Or not. I'll erase this preamble if I ever go through with making myself sound like less of a tard than I currently do in this review.
Months ago I wrote a review where I talked about science...more
Months ago I wrote a review where I talked about science...more
Seems I'm not a big fan of the Edge series, in which John Brockman asks his annual question to 150 intellectual luminaries. Like so many things, the idea sounds better than its execution turns out to be. This book, for example, could be subtitled: 150 Ways to {Mis|Re}interpret a Question.
Which is the problem. These folks are pretty much all answering different questions. Steven Pinker, for example, a thinker I truly admire, is answering this question: Are electronic media revamping the brain's i...more
Which is the problem. These folks are pretty much all answering different questions. Steven Pinker, for example, a thinker I truly admire, is answering this question: Are electronic media revamping the brain's i...more
This is the kind of book you would put in the bathroom. The question was asked, "Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?" but could just as easily asked, "How is the internet changing the way you think?" Philosophers, scientists, professors, authors, psychologists, sociologists, and plain old smarty-pants answered this question. A hundred plus articles comprise this book with the answer to this question. Some of them are dry. Some of them completely fascinating. All of their answers are uniq...more
So. Firstly, not quite what I expected. I expected something more similar to journal articles rather than the more personal, anecdotal articles here. These address more than the question posed in the title; historical changes are addressed, but also deeper, implied questions that lead on from this first, how and in which ways the internet has changed thinking. (On a completely unrelated note, my IB English teacher would be so pleased. I still hear those two phrases in italics in her voice.) It a...more
A collection of short essays from experts in a variety of fields, this book may not be for everyone, but I thought it was a fun read. You get to read responses from the likes of Clay Shirky, Steven Pinker, Brian Eno, and dozens upon dozens of others, answering the book's title question. Don't go in expecting lots of hard facts and research to back up each individual's claim though, as the essays are often more anecdotal in nature. Normally, that may bother me, but if you take the book for what i...more
A compendium of 150+ intellectuals, creatives, entrepreneurs, philosophers voicing their opinions on the human thought process as it is developing along-side the internet. Opinions range from positive, to negative, to uncertainty, all the while acknowledging the major impact of information overload through speed and accessibility.
Rating: 4.2? - Plenty of historical opinion and intuitive insight of what may establish itself. Also how the internet affects scientific, technological, and political i...more
Rating: 4.2? - Plenty of historical opinion and intuitive insight of what may establish itself. Also how the internet affects scientific, technological, and political i...more
Before reading this book, I would have answered its question—"Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?"—with an almost reflexive "Of course" (being mainly influenced by Nicholas Carr's
The Shallows
). Now, my answer is different.
In terms of answers, this book has a lot of them (and a lot of questions too). It consists of more than 150 short essays, which are available on the Edge website. The answers vary wildly, from "The Internet is profoundly and irreversibly changing the way I think," to...more
In terms of answers, this book has a lot of them (and a lot of questions too). It consists of more than 150 short essays, which are available on the Edge website. The answers vary wildly, from "The Internet is profoundly and irreversibly changing the way I think," to...more
I got a pre-publication copy of this book for free from Goodreads giveaways, which explains why the pages were completely out of order and I had to use two bookmarks and do a bit of searching in order to turn the pages. Either that's what happens when you get free things, or it is a conscious response to the concerns over the ease of reading on computer screens being so unchallenging that our memory and brainpower are suffering. That would be pretty clever.
These essays function as pretty good 'w...more
These essays function as pretty good 'w...more
This book consists of numerous tiny essays on the relationships between the Internet and human thinking. The good thing is that it offers a great diversity of perspectives from various intellectuals ranging from artists to writers to mathematicians. The downside is in its format as well: the essays are so short that they only allow the introduction of ideas without further development or critical interpretation. Overall, worth reading.
Update:
since I am interested in gender and technology, I beca...more
Update:
since I am interested in gender and technology, I beca...more
This is a collection of short - often very short - essays. As always in collections such as this, some essays are stronger than others. Probably the Brian Eno chapter alone is worth the price of entry. But it is a provocative collection, and the ideas have been presented in a readable and conversational fashion. This is not the foundation for research but it is the trigger for thought.
There was definitely some interesting stuff here, but like the internet itself there was just too much of it: little snippets from too many people with no discernable organization or conclusion. From an "ordinary" person's p.o.v. a lot of these people seem way too immersed in the field to speak to me in a fashion I can (a) understand or (b) trust. You know something is weird when Brian Eno's is the clearest piece on the topic. :-)
Received an ARC through the Goodreads giveaway. While there were some big names who wrote articles, the review copy was incorrectly bound which made reading quite a chore. I think the idea is very fascinating, but I just didn't have the time to flip back and forth searching for the end of different articles.
Mar 21, 2011
Daniel Moore
is currently reading it
"It is our misfortune to live through the largest increase in expressive capability in the history of the human race. Publishing is becoming deprofessionalized-so widely available that you can't make any money with the basic capability anymore. Clay Shirky pgs 4-5.
Mar 07, 2012
Joeri Putttevils
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
stopped-reading
Blijkt enkel het antwoord te zijn dat 151 mensen geven wanneer hen de vraag gesteld wordt die de titel is van het boek.
Ik hoopte dat het het resultaat zou zijn van een discussie of onderzoek rond het thema.
Ik ben dan ook gestopt na het 6de antwoord of zo...
Ik hoopte dat het het resultaat zou zijn van een discussie of onderzoek rond het thema.
Ik ben dan ook gestopt na het 6de antwoord of zo...
Lots of varied interviews/opinions from some of the greatest minds in our generation. Each presents what they feel ios a valid point. Guess in the long run only YOU can answer the question the title is putting forth..........
The book was fairly disappointing. The chapters are very short so besides a fairly simple answer nothing is developed. I had anticipated something along tghe lines of "The Shallows" but this is nothing like it, pretty much a waste of time to read.
Fascinating insights into the newly evolving world of the internet and the flow of information in the hands and minds of our leading thinkers.
Not as interesting as I thought it would be. There were too many essays and they were too short. I think there were probably a lot of fascinating ideas in here, but there just wasn't enough focus to keep my interest.
Several essays were interesting or entertaining but not worth worth much more than an hour skimming.
Virginia Heffernan & Daniel Haun wrote the articles I most enjoyed. Opinion, experience and style took some wide swings across the 100+ essays, which lent the book an air of the pastiche (how very internet).
The book title, "Is the Internet Changing the Way You think?", belies the actual 2010 Edge question, "How is the internet changing the way you think?". It seems an important distinction.
Lisa Randall's "The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data", is a great look at the titular quote. If I pull n...more
The book title, "Is the Internet Changing the Way You think?", belies the actual 2010 Edge question, "How is the internet changing the way you think?". It seems an important distinction.
Lisa Randall's "The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data", is a great look at the titular quote. If I pull n...more
Jan 14, 2012
Ivaska
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
tech-savvy and people wondering what the Internet really does and comes from
As the book is a series of essays from different authors coming from various fields of interest, it is not easy to judge the title as whole. I really did like some of the essays, for example "Tweet me nice" from Ian and Joel Golds, "The rediscovery of fire" from Chris Anderson and "Brain candy and bad mathematics" from Mark Pagel and more, but some of the essays were far from my "attention span" and I was lured to skip them over. In the end, I read all of them, thinking that if I want to re-read...more
Love the variety of essays here, from artists to scientists, you name it. Fascinating.
Dec 29, 2010
Jeff Raymond
marked it as to-read
Got this through a Goodreads ARC promotion, but the ARC is incorrectly bound and is completely unreadable. The portions that I can read seem interesting enough, so I will be looking for this when it releases for real, but the ARC situation is unfortunate.
This is a collection of very short essays by people from many fields (though heavy on psychology and the physical sciences, it seems) trying to make sense of the Internet revolution while we're still in the thick of it. It's a little tedious if you try to read straight through cover to cover, and may be best enjoyed as sort of a coffee table book (but without the pretty pictures). Pick it up when you have a spare minute and read one or two entries. Some are optimistic, some are pessimistic, but...more
An interesting collection of short articles by 154 "intellectuals, scientists, artists and creative thinkers" responding to the question in the title. Many different perspectives, many different views. No definite answers, though, just a lot of different opinions. And some didn't really answer the question at all. In the end, I think the answer is maybe it has changed how we think, or maybe not. In any case, the Internet surely has changed what we think about, what we know, and how we spend our...more
Great. And nicely organized.
Excellent book on whether the internet is really changing our brains--collected essays from psychologists, theologians, neuroscientist, computer scientists all give their perspectives about whether there's a physiological change. Thought provoking!
This book was comprised of a bunch of short responses to the title question. Some of them were pretty interesting, but most of the respondents were older, so I question the validity of some of the comments since younger generations use the internet differently.
Great insight in the impact of the internet in the academic and artistic world. It also offers some great visions about the future of the web.
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With a broad career spanning the fields of art, science, books, software and the Internet. In 1960 he established the bases for "intermedia kinetic environments" in art, theatre and commerce, while consulting for clients such as General Electric, Columbia Pictures, The Pentagon, The White House... In 1973 he formed his own literary and software agency. He is founder of the Edge Foundation and edit...more
More about John Brockman...
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yeah well I was trying to explain to my boss why proving a "nu...more
Mar 12, 2011 11:51am
Mar 12, 2011 11:52am