Obsessed with what we can do with our mobile phones and the web, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture, because so much is changing and so fast. We are distracted by it. This book steps back to look at our use of new technology and draws some uncomfortable and challenging conclusions about what society may need to do to get the best, not the worst, out of the digital era. Why are our fundamental notions of space and time changing? Why going mobile is the big difference. How new technology makes us prefer the distant to the close at hand Can we sustain current levels of communication? Will we have to start blocking things out? How are people doing this already? Why time is the biggest issue for most people, and technology is not helping. How can we make media deeper? How our sense of who we are is changing too. Why building trust online is going to be so important, and such a challenge. Why we need to focus on social networks. Why a new sense of discipline is required to prevent us drowning in distraction. Why each of us can use digital to be creative.
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deep, insightful thought-provoking work,
By Tomi T Ahonen (London UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Distraction: Being human in the digital age (Paperback)
In short, this book is about us people surviving in a world that is becoming ever more intrusive in the various technologies. It is to computers and cellphones what Charlie Chaplin's movie Modern Times was to the industrial revolution. Curtis puts in very human terms and touching stories and examples totally commonplace issues that are hassling us all, such as the overload of incoming e-mails or the ever-present ringing of the cellphone.I work in the industry for digital convergence and am thus professionally exposed to a lot of the current thinking in this space. I read a lot from Rheingold's Smart Mobs to Beck's Got Game and just about everything about evolving technologies inbetween. This book was still able to touch me very deeply and had lots of revealing insights and many thoughts Curtis presents have resurfaced time and again, clearly rolling around in my mind. Reading the book, from chapter to chapter, I was hit again and again with the thought "oh my, and that's just like me; but I never thought of THAT as being a universal trait or experience." Reading the book gave an immense sense of calm in reacting to the rapid changes in society today. He writes from personal experience through the high tech companies he has founded and uses many revealing examples from companies that have revolutionized parts of the industry. If you want a visionary book on the near future, and want to understand the humanity of it all, whether a sociologist to see it from the viewpoint of the human, or from the view point of the business/IT person wanting to make technology work better for us all, this is a book you will find most rewarding to read. I completely recommend it to all. Tomi T Ahonen / UK
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
