Author: Heike Graf
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783742461
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
How do we talk about the environment? Does this communication reveal and construct meaning? Is the environment expressed and foregrounded in the new landscape of digital media? The Environment in the Age of the Internet is an interdisciplinary collection that draws together research and answers from media and communication studies, social sciences, modern history, and folklore studies. Edited by Heike Graf, its focus is on the communicative approaches taken by different groups to ecological issues, shedding light on how these groups tell their distinctive stories of "the environment". This book draws on case studies from around the world and focuses on activists of radically different kinds: protestors against pulp mills in South America, resistance to mining in the Sámi region of Sweden, the struggles of indigenous peoples from the Arctic to the Amazon, gardening bloggers in northern Europe, and neo-Nazi environmentalists in Germany. Each case is examined in relation to its multifaceted media coverage, mainstream and digital, professional and amateur. Stories are told within a context; examining the "what" and "how" of these environmental stories demonstrates how contexts determine communication, and how communication raises and shapes awareness. These issues have never been more urgent, this work never more timely. The Environment in the Age of the Internet is essential reading for everyone interested in how humans relate to their environment in the digital age.
The Environment in the Age of the Internet
Author: Heike Graf
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783742461
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
How do we talk about the environment? Does this communication reveal and construct meaning? Is the environment expressed and foregrounded in the new landscape of digital media? The Environment in the Age of the Internet is an interdisciplinary collection that draws together research and answers from media and communication studies, social sciences, modern history, and folklore studies. Edited by Heike Graf, its focus is on the communicative approaches taken by different groups to ecological issues, shedding light on how these groups tell their distinctive stories of "the environment". This book draws on case studies from around the world and focuses on activists of radically different kinds: protestors against pulp mills in South America, resistance to mining in the Sámi region of Sweden, the struggles of indigenous peoples from the Arctic to the Amazon, gardening bloggers in northern Europe, and neo-Nazi environmentalists in Germany. Each case is examined in relation to its multifaceted media coverage, mainstream and digital, professional and amateur. Stories are told within a context; examining the "what" and "how" of these environmental stories demonstrates how contexts determine communication, and how communication raises and shapes awareness. These issues have never been more urgent, this work never more timely. The Environment in the Age of the Internet is essential reading for everyone interested in how humans relate to their environment in the digital age.
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783742461
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
How do we talk about the environment? Does this communication reveal and construct meaning? Is the environment expressed and foregrounded in the new landscape of digital media? The Environment in the Age of the Internet is an interdisciplinary collection that draws together research and answers from media and communication studies, social sciences, modern history, and folklore studies. Edited by Heike Graf, its focus is on the communicative approaches taken by different groups to ecological issues, shedding light on how these groups tell their distinctive stories of "the environment". This book draws on case studies from around the world and focuses on activists of radically different kinds: protestors against pulp mills in South America, resistance to mining in the Sámi region of Sweden, the struggles of indigenous peoples from the Arctic to the Amazon, gardening bloggers in northern Europe, and neo-Nazi environmentalists in Germany. Each case is examined in relation to its multifaceted media coverage, mainstream and digital, professional and amateur. Stories are told within a context; examining the "what" and "how" of these environmental stories demonstrates how contexts determine communication, and how communication raises and shapes awareness. These issues have never been more urgent, this work never more timely. The Environment in the Age of the Internet is essential reading for everyone interested in how humans relate to their environment in the digital age.
The Internet of Things in the Modern Business Environment
Author: Lee, In
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1522521054
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
The industrial internet is a new and upcoming technology that is changing the practices of organizations and corporations everywhere. Through research and application, opportunities can arise from implementing these new systems and devices. The Internet of Things in the Modern Business Environment is an essential reference source for the latest scholarly research on varying aspects of the interworking of smart devices within a business setting and explores the impact of these devices on company operations and models. Featuring extensive coverage on a broad range of topics such as supply chain management, information sharing, and data analytics, this publication is ideally designed for researchers, managers, and students seeking current research on the expansion of technology in commerce.
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1522521054
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
The industrial internet is a new and upcoming technology that is changing the practices of organizations and corporations everywhere. Through research and application, opportunities can arise from implementing these new systems and devices. The Internet of Things in the Modern Business Environment is an essential reference source for the latest scholarly research on varying aspects of the interworking of smart devices within a business setting and explores the impact of these devices on company operations and models. Featuring extensive coverage on a broad range of topics such as supply chain management, information sharing, and data analytics, this publication is ideally designed for researchers, managers, and students seeking current research on the expansion of technology in commerce.
A History of the Internet and the Digital Future
Author: Johnny Ryan
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1861898355
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
A History of the Internet and the Digital Future tells the story of the development of the Internet from the 1950s to the present and examines how the balance of power has shifted between the individual and the state in the areas of censorship, copyright infringement, intellectual freedom, and terrorism and warfare. Johnny Ryan explains how the Internet has revolutionized political campaigns; how the development of the World Wide Web enfranchised a new online population of assertive, niche consumers; and how the dot-com bust taught smarter firms to capitalize on the power of digital artisans. From the government-controlled systems of the Cold War to today’s move towards cloud computing, user-driven content, and the new global commons, this book reveals the trends that are shaping the businesses, politics, and media of the digital future.
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1861898355
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
A History of the Internet and the Digital Future tells the story of the development of the Internet from the 1950s to the present and examines how the balance of power has shifted between the individual and the state in the areas of censorship, copyright infringement, intellectual freedom, and terrorism and warfare. Johnny Ryan explains how the Internet has revolutionized political campaigns; how the development of the World Wide Web enfranchised a new online population of assertive, niche consumers; and how the dot-com bust taught smarter firms to capitalize on the power of digital artisans. From the government-controlled systems of the Cold War to today’s move towards cloud computing, user-driven content, and the new global commons, this book reveals the trends that are shaping the businesses, politics, and media of the digital future.
Inventing the Internet
Author: Janet Abbate
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262261332
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Book Description
Janet Abbate recounts the key players and technologies that allowed the Internet to develop; but her main focus is always on the social and cultural factors that influenced the Internet's design and use. Since the late 1960s the Internet has grown from a single experimental network serving a dozen sites in the United States to a network of networks linking millions of computers worldwide. In Inventing the Internet, Janet Abbate recounts the key players and technologies that allowed the Internet to develop; but her main focus is always on the social and cultural factors that influenced the Internets design and use. The story she unfolds is an often twisting tale of collaboration and conflict among a remarkable variety of players, including government and military agencies, computer scientists in academia and industry, graduate students, telecommunications companies, standards organizations, and network users. The story starts with the early networking breakthroughs formulated in Cold War think tanks and realized in the Defense Department's creation of the ARPANET. It ends with the emergence of the Internet and its rapid and seemingly chaotic growth. Abbate looks at how academic and military influences and attitudes shaped both networks; how the usual lines between producer and user of a technology were crossed with interesting and unique results; and how later users invented their own very successful applications, such as electronic mail and the World Wide Web. She concludes that such applications continue the trend of decentralized, user-driven development that has characterized the Internet's entire history and that the key to the Internet's success has been a commitment to flexibility and diversity, both in technical design and in organizational culture.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262261332
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Book Description
Janet Abbate recounts the key players and technologies that allowed the Internet to develop; but her main focus is always on the social and cultural factors that influenced the Internet's design and use. Since the late 1960s the Internet has grown from a single experimental network serving a dozen sites in the United States to a network of networks linking millions of computers worldwide. In Inventing the Internet, Janet Abbate recounts the key players and technologies that allowed the Internet to develop; but her main focus is always on the social and cultural factors that influenced the Internets design and use. The story she unfolds is an often twisting tale of collaboration and conflict among a remarkable variety of players, including government and military agencies, computer scientists in academia and industry, graduate students, telecommunications companies, standards organizations, and network users. The story starts with the early networking breakthroughs formulated in Cold War think tanks and realized in the Defense Department's creation of the ARPANET. It ends with the emergence of the Internet and its rapid and seemingly chaotic growth. Abbate looks at how academic and military influences and attitudes shaped both networks; how the usual lines between producer and user of a technology were crossed with interesting and unique results; and how later users invented their own very successful applications, such as electronic mail and the World Wide Web. She concludes that such applications continue the trend of decentralized, user-driven development that has characterized the Internet's entire history and that the key to the Internet's success has been a commitment to flexibility and diversity, both in technical design and in organizational culture.
World Wide Waste: How Digital Is Killing Our Planetâand What We Can Do About It
Author: Gerry McGovern
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1916444628
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
Speaking out when it's unpopular. Back in the day, Henry David Thoreau raged at the robber barons-the big shots of their age, despoiling the environment in the name of progress. Deep in the throes of the seemingly unstoppable growth of tech, a modern-day Thoreau has emerged in the guise of Gerry McGovern-decrying the massive, hidden negative impacts of tech on the environment. McGovern has thoroughly documented in World Wide Waste how tech damages the Earth-and what we should be doing about it. It is not just the acres of discarded computer hardware conveniently dumped in Third World countries. Every time an email is downloaded it contributes to global warming. Every tweet, search, check of a webpage creates pollution. Digital is physical. Those data centers are not in the Cloud. They're on land in massive physical buildings packed full of computers hungry for energy. It seems invisible. It seems cheap and free. It's not. Digital costs the Earth.
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1916444628
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
Speaking out when it's unpopular. Back in the day, Henry David Thoreau raged at the robber barons-the big shots of their age, despoiling the environment in the name of progress. Deep in the throes of the seemingly unstoppable growth of tech, a modern-day Thoreau has emerged in the guise of Gerry McGovern-decrying the massive, hidden negative impacts of tech on the environment. McGovern has thoroughly documented in World Wide Waste how tech damages the Earth-and what we should be doing about it. It is not just the acres of discarded computer hardware conveniently dumped in Third World countries. Every time an email is downloaded it contributes to global warming. Every tweet, search, check of a webpage creates pollution. Digital is physical. Those data centers are not in the Cloud. They're on land in massive physical buildings packed full of computers hungry for energy. It seems invisible. It seems cheap and free. It's not. Digital costs the Earth.
Handbook of Research on Digital Transformation, Industry Use Cases, and the Impact of Disruptive Technologies
Author: Wynn, Martin George
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1799877140
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 487
Book Description
Companies from various sectors of the economy are confronted with the new phenomenon of digital transformation and are faced with the challenge of formulating and implementing a company-wide strategy to incorporate what are often viewed as “disruptive” technologies. These technologies are sometimes associated with significant and extremely rapid change, in some cases with even the replacement of established business models. Many of these technologies have been deployed in unison by leading-edge companies acting as the catalyst for significant process change and people skills enhancement. The Handbook of Research on Digital Transformation, Industry Use Cases, and the Impact of Disruptive Technologies examines the phenomenon of digital transformation and the impact of disruptive technologies through the lens of industry case studies where different combinations of these new technologies have been deployed and incorporated into enterprise IT and business strategies. Covering topics including chatbot implementation, multinational companies, cloud computing, internet of things, artificial intelligence, big data and analytics, immersive technologies, and social media, this book is essential for senior management, IT managers, technologists, computer scientists, cybersecurity analysts, academicians, researchers, IT consultancies, professors, and students.
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1799877140
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 487
Book Description
Companies from various sectors of the economy are confronted with the new phenomenon of digital transformation and are faced with the challenge of formulating and implementing a company-wide strategy to incorporate what are often viewed as “disruptive” technologies. These technologies are sometimes associated with significant and extremely rapid change, in some cases with even the replacement of established business models. Many of these technologies have been deployed in unison by leading-edge companies acting as the catalyst for significant process change and people skills enhancement. The Handbook of Research on Digital Transformation, Industry Use Cases, and the Impact of Disruptive Technologies examines the phenomenon of digital transformation and the impact of disruptive technologies through the lens of industry case studies where different combinations of these new technologies have been deployed and incorporated into enterprise IT and business strategies. Covering topics including chatbot implementation, multinational companies, cloud computing, internet of things, artificial intelligence, big data and analytics, immersive technologies, and social media, this book is essential for senior management, IT managers, technologists, computer scientists, cybersecurity analysts, academicians, researchers, IT consultancies, professors, and students.
Adolescents In The Internet Age, 2nd Edition
Author: Paris S. Strom
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1623967643
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 467
Book Description
Teaching adolescents and learning from them is the paradigm elaborated throughout this second edition of Adolescents in the Internet Age. The premise is based upon four assumptions: (1) Adolescents have unique experiences that qualify them as the most credible source on what growing up is like in the current environment; (2) Adolescents are more competent than many adults with tools of technology that will be needed for learning in the future; (3) Adolescents and adults can support mutual development by adopting the concept of reciprocal learning; and (4) The common quest of adolescents to gain adult identity could be attained before employment. Expectations are the theme for every chapter. The reason expectations are so important is because they influence goals, determine priorities, and are used to evaluate progress and achievements of individuals and institutions. When teacher expectations correspond with the abilities and interests of students, achievement and satisfaction are common outcomes. In contrast, if teachers expect too little, student potential can be undermined. There is also concern if expectations that students have for themselves surpass their abilities. This occurs if teachers do not inform students about their deficits. Multitasking, doing too many things at the same time, detracts from productivity. Sharing accountability depends upon complimentary and attainable expectations that can be met by students, teachers, and parents. To support appropriate expectations, tthis book for secondary teachers and high school students seeking a broader understanding of their own generation is organized in four parts about aspects of learning and development. (1) Identity expectations introduce traditional perspectives on adolescence, changes related to sources of learning, evolving emphasis of schools, and ways to support motivation, goal setting, and formation of identity. (2) Cognitive expectations examine mental abilities, academic standards, emergence of the Internet as a learning tool, development of media literacy, creative problem solving, and encouragement of higher order thinking skills. (3) Social expectations explore the need for giving greater attention to social development, importance of teamwork skills, involvement with social networking, adoption of civil behavior, school safety, and values as a basis for ethical behavior and character. (4) Health expectations center on decisions that influence physical health, well-being, and lifestyle choice. Consideration is given to stress management, emotional intelligence, and risk assessment strategies for individual teenagers and the schools that they attend.
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1623967643
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 467
Book Description
Teaching adolescents and learning from them is the paradigm elaborated throughout this second edition of Adolescents in the Internet Age. The premise is based upon four assumptions: (1) Adolescents have unique experiences that qualify them as the most credible source on what growing up is like in the current environment; (2) Adolescents are more competent than many adults with tools of technology that will be needed for learning in the future; (3) Adolescents and adults can support mutual development by adopting the concept of reciprocal learning; and (4) The common quest of adolescents to gain adult identity could be attained before employment. Expectations are the theme for every chapter. The reason expectations are so important is because they influence goals, determine priorities, and are used to evaluate progress and achievements of individuals and institutions. When teacher expectations correspond with the abilities and interests of students, achievement and satisfaction are common outcomes. In contrast, if teachers expect too little, student potential can be undermined. There is also concern if expectations that students have for themselves surpass their abilities. This occurs if teachers do not inform students about their deficits. Multitasking, doing too many things at the same time, detracts from productivity. Sharing accountability depends upon complimentary and attainable expectations that can be met by students, teachers, and parents. To support appropriate expectations, tthis book for secondary teachers and high school students seeking a broader understanding of their own generation is organized in four parts about aspects of learning and development. (1) Identity expectations introduce traditional perspectives on adolescence, changes related to sources of learning, evolving emphasis of schools, and ways to support motivation, goal setting, and formation of identity. (2) Cognitive expectations examine mental abilities, academic standards, emergence of the Internet as a learning tool, development of media literacy, creative problem solving, and encouragement of higher order thinking skills. (3) Social expectations explore the need for giving greater attention to social development, importance of teamwork skills, involvement with social networking, adoption of civil behavior, school safety, and values as a basis for ethical behavior and character. (4) Health expectations center on decisions that influence physical health, well-being, and lifestyle choice. Consideration is given to stress management, emotional intelligence, and risk assessment strategies for individual teenagers and the schools that they attend.
Digital Sociology
Author: Deborah Lupton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317691806
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 381
Book Description
We now live in a digital society. New digital technologies have had a profound influence on everyday life, social relations, government, commerce, the economy and the production and dissemination of knowledge. People’s movements in space, their purchasing habits and their online communication with others are now monitored in detail by digital technologies. We are increasingly becoming digital data subjects, whether we like it or not, and whether we choose this or not. The sub-discipline of digital sociology provides a means by which the impact, development and use of these technologies and their incorporation into social worlds, social institutions and concepts of selfhood and embodiment may be investigated, analysed and understood. This book introduces a range of interesting social, cultural and political dimensions of digital society and discusses some of the important debates occurring in research and scholarship on these aspects. It covers the new knowledge economy and big data, reconceptualising research in the digital era, the digitisation of higher education, the diversity of digital use, digital politics and citizen digital engagement, the politics of surveillance, privacy issues, the contribution of digital devices to embodiment and concepts of selfhood and many other topics. Digital Sociology is essential reading not only for students and academics in sociology, anthropology, media and communication, digital cultures, digital humanities, internet studies, science and technology studies, cultural geography and social computing, but for other readers interested in the social impact of digital technologies.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317691806
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 381
Book Description
We now live in a digital society. New digital technologies have had a profound influence on everyday life, social relations, government, commerce, the economy and the production and dissemination of knowledge. People’s movements in space, their purchasing habits and their online communication with others are now monitored in detail by digital technologies. We are increasingly becoming digital data subjects, whether we like it or not, and whether we choose this or not. The sub-discipline of digital sociology provides a means by which the impact, development and use of these technologies and their incorporation into social worlds, social institutions and concepts of selfhood and embodiment may be investigated, analysed and understood. This book introduces a range of interesting social, cultural and political dimensions of digital society and discusses some of the important debates occurring in research and scholarship on these aspects. It covers the new knowledge economy and big data, reconceptualising research in the digital era, the digitisation of higher education, the diversity of digital use, digital politics and citizen digital engagement, the politics of surveillance, privacy issues, the contribution of digital devices to embodiment and concepts of selfhood and many other topics. Digital Sociology is essential reading not only for students and academics in sociology, anthropology, media and communication, digital cultures, digital humanities, internet studies, science and technology studies, cultural geography and social computing, but for other readers interested in the social impact of digital technologies.
Gen Z, Explained
Author: Roberta Katz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226823962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Book Description
An optimistic and nuanced portrait of a generation that has much to teach us about how to live and collaborate in our digital world. Born since the mid-1990s, members of Generation Z comprise the first generation never to know the world without the internet, and the most diverse generation yet. As Gen Z starts to emerge into adulthood and enter the workforce, what do we really know about them? And what can we learn from them? Gen Z, Explained is the authoritative portrait of this significant generation. It draws on extensive interviews that display this generation’s candor, surveys that explore their views and attitudes, and a vast database of their astonishingly inventive lexicon to build a comprehensive picture of their values, daily lives, and outlook. Gen Z emerges here as an extraordinarily thoughtful, promising, and perceptive generation that is sounding a warning to their elders about the world around them—a warning of a complexity and depth the “OK Boomer” phenomenon can only suggest. Much of the existing literature about Gen Z has been highly judgmental. In contrast, this book provides a deep and nuanced understanding of a generation facing a future of enormous challenges, from climate change to civil unrest. What’s more, they are facing this future head-on, relying on themselves and their peers to work collaboratively to solve these problems. As Gen Z, Explained shows, this group of young people is as compassionate and imaginative as any that has come before, and understanding the way they tackle problems may enable us to envision new kinds of solutions. This portrait of Gen Z is ultimately an optimistic one, suggesting they have something to teach all of us about how to live and thrive in this digital world.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226823962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Book Description
An optimistic and nuanced portrait of a generation that has much to teach us about how to live and collaborate in our digital world. Born since the mid-1990s, members of Generation Z comprise the first generation never to know the world without the internet, and the most diverse generation yet. As Gen Z starts to emerge into adulthood and enter the workforce, what do we really know about them? And what can we learn from them? Gen Z, Explained is the authoritative portrait of this significant generation. It draws on extensive interviews that display this generation’s candor, surveys that explore their views and attitudes, and a vast database of their astonishingly inventive lexicon to build a comprehensive picture of their values, daily lives, and outlook. Gen Z emerges here as an extraordinarily thoughtful, promising, and perceptive generation that is sounding a warning to their elders about the world around them—a warning of a complexity and depth the “OK Boomer” phenomenon can only suggest. Much of the existing literature about Gen Z has been highly judgmental. In contrast, this book provides a deep and nuanced understanding of a generation facing a future of enormous challenges, from climate change to civil unrest. What’s more, they are facing this future head-on, relying on themselves and their peers to work collaboratively to solve these problems. As Gen Z, Explained shows, this group of young people is as compassionate and imaginative as any that has come before, and understanding the way they tackle problems may enable us to envision new kinds of solutions. This portrait of Gen Z is ultimately an optimistic one, suggesting they have something to teach all of us about how to live and thrive in this digital world.
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
Author: Nicholas Carr
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393079368
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction: “Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary mind.”—Michael Agger, Slate “Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways. Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393079368
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction: “Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary mind.”—Michael Agger, Slate “Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways. Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.