Purchase
Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better
Penguin Press
September 2013
On Sale: September 12, 2013
ISBN: 1594204454 EAN: 9781594204456 Kindle: B00C5R7AJK Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
It's undeniable—technology is changing the way we think. But
is it for the better? Amid a chorus of doomsayers, Clive
Thompson delivers a resounding "yes." The Internet age has
produced a radical new style of human intelligence, worthy
of both celebration and analysis. We learn more and retain
it longer, write and think with global audiences, and even
gain an ESP-like awareness of the world around us. Modern
technology is making us smarter, better connected, and often
deeper—both as individuals and as a society. In
Smarter Than You Think Thompson shows that every
technological innovation—from the written word to the
printing press to the telegraph—has provoked the very same
anxieties that plague us today. We panic that life will
never be the same, that our attentions are eroding, that
culture is being trivialized. But as in the past, we
adapt—learning to use the new and retaining what’s good of
the old. Thompson introduces us to a cast of
extraordinary characters who augment their minds in
inventive ways. There's the seventy-six-year old millionaire
who digitally records his every waking moment—giving him
instant recall of the events and ideas of his life, even
going back decades. There's a group of courageous Chinese
students who mounted an online movement that shut down a
$1.6 billion toxic copper plant. There are experts and there
are amateurs, including a global set of gamers who took a
puzzle that had baffled HIV scientists for a decade—and
solved it collaboratively in only one month.
Smarter Than You Think isn't just about pioneers.
It's about everyday users of technology and how our digital
tools—from Google to Twitter to Facebook and smartphones—are
giving us new ways to learn, talk, and share our ideas.
Thompson harnesses the latest discoveries in social science
to explore how digital technology taps into our
long-standing habits of mind—pushing them in powerful new
directions. Our thinking will continue to evolve as newer
tools enter our lives. Smarter Than You Think
embraces and extols this transformation, presenting an
exciting vision of the present and the future.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|