Digital Technology: How Is It Changing Us?
"Embedded in every tool is an ideological bias, a predisposition to construct the world as one thing rather than another, to value one thing over another." Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
How is digital technology affecting the way we live our lives and how we think about ourselves and the world around us? How are we changing as individuals and as a culture? What is lost? What found? Are the changes fundamentally different from those of the past or merely a matter of degree? And do we really want to continue heading in this direction? These are some of the important questions this website explores, by reviewing books, articles, products, and trends in digital technology and culture.
The Master Switch by Tim Wu Review of Wu's book about how information technologies rise, dominate, and fall, from Western Union to Google and beyond.
The Facebook Effect Available in Paperback David Kirkpatrick chronicle of Facebook, the early years.
Cro-Magnon Brain in the Information Age Why we don't really multitask.
This Is Your Brain Online What is continuous partial attention doing to our brains?
CIA Launches Wiki The agency in charge of top secrets is using free wiki software to share information across departments and around the world.
The Poet and the Computer Norman Cousins wrote this brief, remarkable essay in 1966. It is reprinted here in full.
Being Human in 2020 Interface designers, computer experts, and psychologists gathered to discuss human-computer interaction in the year 2020.
Up, Up, and Away! Kevin Kelly's Vision of Screen Literacy Some thoughts on writer Kevin Kelly's recent article in "The NY Times Magazine"
The Culture of Wikipedia Is Wikipedia really the anti-encyclopedia?
Do Digital Technologies Make McThinkers of Us All? Review of Maggie Jackson's new book, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age
A Long Rant Against All Things Internet Review of Lee Siegel's extended critique of Internet culture
The Internet at Risk: How Does Its Future Look? Review of Jonathan Zittrain's new book, The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It
Nicholas Carr's The Big Switch Nicholas Carr's new book talks about the future of computers, and of us.
The Wisdom of Joseph Weizenbaum, Heretic Weizenbaum, who died earlier this year, wrote a book in the 1970s that is terribly relevant to today's debate about the power and place of computers in society.
The Story and Science of the Reading Brain If you are what you read, what does this say about those who read in hypertext only?
The Stupefication of America Are digital technologies making the younger generation permanently stupid?
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