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Net Smart: How to Thrive Online Hardcover – March 16, 2012

by Howard Rheingold (Author), Anthony Weeks (Illustrator)

45 customer reviews

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Like it or not, knowing how to make use of online tools without being overloaded with too much information is an essential ingredient to personal success in the twenty-first century. But how can we use digital media so that they make us empowered participants rather than passive receivers, grounded, well-rounded people rather than multitasking basket cases? In Net Smart, cyberculture expert Howard Rheingold shows us how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and, above all, mindfully.

Mindful use of digital media means thinking about what we are doing, cultivating an ongoing inner inquiry into how we want to spend our time. Rheingold outlines five fundamental digital literacies, online skills that will help us do this: attention, participation, collaboration, critical consumption of information (or "crap detection"), and network smarts. He explains how attention works, and how we can use our attention to focus on the tiny relevant portion of the incoming tsunami of information. He describes the quality of participation that empowers the best of the bloggers, netizens, tweeters, and other online community participants; he examines how successful online collaborative enterprises contribute new knowledge to the world in new ways; and he teaches us a lesson on networks and network building.

Rheingold points out that there is a bigger social issue at work in digital literacy, one that goes beyond personal empowerment. If we combine our individual efforts wisely, it could produce a more thoughtful society: countless small acts like publishing a Web page or sharing a link could add up to a public good that enriches everybody.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

The social media landscape changes quicker than you can say 'future shock.' As soon as you think you've mastered one network, another pops up, demanding its share of time and attention. Thank goodness, then, for Howard Rheingold. He has identified the skills -- simultaneously old-fashioned and cutting-edge -- that not only will help you thrive in this tumultuous world, but also help you shape social media into a force for good. Net Smart is a lifeboat for people who want to participate in new technologies without drowning in the flood.

(Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind)

A desperately needed and wonderfully written guide to being literate in today's digital, always-on world. This book is not just descriptive. It articulates a comprehensive set of social norms, practices and protocols that help us unleash the collective power of networked intelligence. And, yes, using the web mindfully can indeed make us smarter, as this book will illustrate. A must read for anyone wanting to thrive in today's increasingly connected world.

(John Seely Brown, Former Chief Scientist of Xerox Corp and Director of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center; co-author of A New Culture of Learning )

Once again, Howard Rheingold has found a way of journeying into the future and coming back with gold. The questions he tackles here could not be more pertinent. Whether you're thrilled at the amazing potential for online collaboration, or just stressed by your email in-box, his insights on how to achieve a new form of digital literacy deserve wide adoption.

(Chris Anderson, Curator of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design))

Education today is woefully inadequate. It's about teaching people information and skills as if we're alone and disconnected, stocking knowledge and tools in our brains. Today, it is important to learn how to find information and how to collaborate. Written in the traditionally smart and fun-to-read Rheingoldian style, Net Smart is the guide on how to think, learn, survive and thrive in the post-internet era. An essential guide and a must-read!

(Joichi Ito, Director, MIT Media Lab)

That Rheingold has written a smart and enjoyable guide is unsurprising....Rheingold does us an important service by offering a number of insights into, and strategies for, the 'net smarts' we need to function more efficiently in our increasingly online world.

(James Hendler Science)

Here, I'd point to the work of my friend Howard Rheingold and his new book Net Smart, which is an excellent guide for how to be a digitally fluent user of all the technologies we have available to us now. It's an excellent book and I think the FCC should include it in their plan for training the digital educators going into schools!

(Christopher Mims Technology Review)

If you are going to purchase one book about using social media, this is the one to read. It's for people who want to go deeper and get practical know how, improved productivity, and integrate physical and virtual lives.

(Beth Kantor)

About the Author

Howard Rheingold, an influential writer and thinker on social media, is the author of Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (both published by the MIT Press), and Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution.

Series: Net Smart
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press; 2/15/12 edition (March 16, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0262017458
ISBN-13: 978-0262017459
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 45 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #977,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #127 in Books > Computers & Technology > Web Development & Design > User Generated Content
- #723 in Books > Computers & Technology > Internet & Social Media > Social Media
- #965 in Books > Science & Math > Technology > Social Aspects

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Wayne W.

Great insights from a pioneer in internetworking

September 6, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Howard Rheingold is renown for his insights and involvement in the use and social implications of emerging technology -especially in how networking facilitates interaction (especially the pervasive networking enabled by the internet) to the point of redefining what a community is. In this book he provides insights with lead to strategies and hints for how to participate and make the best use of social networking. Connecting with purpose, developing filters such as crap detection and working towards a Personal Learning Network (PLN) are offered as ways to not just cope with but to exploit the media to enrich your life and endeavors.

The only drawback for me was that Howardʻs writing style is liberally infused with new terminology -much of which seems created "on the fly". On the one hand, this is new territory covering an old topic (communication) so it warrants new terminology to catch the nuances of the change but I just found it slow reading at times and having to re-read sections to fully understand what he is getting at.

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fryjord

A good, kind of self-helpy introduction

February 2, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I used this book in a social media course I'm teaching this semester. The book is a good introduction to digital media, and I think my students got a lot out of it. There's nothing really revolutionary or original in here, but I don't think that was Rheingold's intention. For someone looking for a less academic, though still well thought out, book on digital media, I recommend this work.

Oh, and it helps that Rheingold is a fun writer. He's been doing this for a long time, so it helped my students when he told stories about what it was like in the 70's and 80's. It gave him a lot of credibility and let me historically situate social media within larger historical trends.

The one problem I had with the book was the self help tone to it all. Rheingold is big on mindfulness, and it can be a little repetitive. I'm also not 100% sure why we need the term because it seems like a more complicated way to conceptualize "think about what you do".

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Matthew D. Barton

A rhetorical handbook for the digital age

October 12, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I used this as a textbook in "Digital Rhetoric, Discourse, and Culture," a university course aimed at juniors and seniors. These students tend to be English majors, mass comm, or education students. I think it fit my students' needs quite well--it's highly readable and contains a great deal of practical advice without getting mired in technical stuff (no coding or advanced software skills are expected or required). It's definitely not what I'd call a scholarly or theoretical text by any means, though Rheingold does mention plenty of scholarship and research along the way. I'd consider it more of a sort of rhetorical manual for social media.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book, though, is the way Rheingold's enthusiasm and passion for his topic resonated with me and the students. It's a fun read, and we had no shortage of subjects to talk about in our seminars.

My only criticism is the length of the chapters. They really should have been broken up in finer chunks to make it easier for teachers to work them into 50-minute sessions.

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J. L. Parker

Media Literacy for the Internet

March 30, 2012

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

For anyone teaching a class in media literacy this book is a must read. The material is well documented and thoughtfully written. Mr. Rheingold is no stranger to the subject in the past having written The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs. He also has taught courses on this subject at Stanford and Cal-Berkeley.

The instructor in a general media literacy course would want to use this book as a supplement to other texts in the class because I have not found such texts to even remotely cover the subject of online literacy adequately. Many in academia haven't had the time to explore the social media themselves so this text will provide a wonderful introduction.

This text could easily be used as the main text in either an upper level undergraduate course or even a graduate course that explores how people use and should use the Internet in general and social media specifically.

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Ken Homer

We All Need This Book

May 15, 2012

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Net Smart is a wonderfully informative book filled with deep wisdom and illuminating insights into how to live life both as a productive individual, as well as an effective global citizen in the online-mediated world of The 21st Century. Howard has done a fine job of weaving together numerous strands in the braid of meaning to craft a book that succeeds in providing a compelling narrative for context combined with practical advice for tactics.

Howard offers Five Literacies as a baseline requirement for anyone who interacts with computers, smart phones, tablets, social media and their related networks. A comprehensive understanding and clear explication of how we human beings have always and continue to co-evolve with our tools is exactly what one would expect from a man who was an Editor at The Whole Earth Review and who has spent the better part of 30 years living and researching life online.

I came away from this book with a much enlarged understanding of the roles that the internet, the worldwide web, social media, history, politics, personal responsibility and a sense of larger purpose are playing in the collective discovery of a future for humanity that will work for the majority of people on Earth - a prerequisite we'd all do well to recognize as necessary to ensure our species' survival. It is not yet a given that this is the path that we will collectively take.

I highly recommend this book for anyone with a curious mind, a feeling for history and a sense of purpose and adventure.

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Mean, Evil, Step-Teacher

He Knows His Crap

November 3, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Howard Rheingold is one of the Gurus in EdTech. His book has everything you need to know for on-line safety and etiquette. Do you have students or children who are on line? Are you on line? Then you need this book. Develop your crap detection skills when searching for accurate information, avoid getting a digital tramp stamp that you'll regret forever, and learn how to keep personal information safe. You'll be smarter and safer after reading this book, and so will your children, friends, and students, once you've shared what you have learned. Check out his website for more information as well as activities and games for youth that teach safe use of the internet.

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