For the first time of my existence, I wrote a customer review for Amazon.com, about Howard Rheingold’s new book Net Smart. I’ll post it here also:
Some books are just… interesting, or beautiful. There are books however which not only discuss existing literature and research from a new angle and provide new insights, but also make you think about your practices and change them.
Net Smart is such a book. I follow the writings, posts, courses and videos of Howard Rheingold since quite some time, but I was amazed to discover the way in which he discusses the research and experiences he accumulated since the early days of the web. He discusses other books about the impact of the internet on society in a very thoughtful and nuanced way, but also adds precious new insights.
This is not a book which limits itself to discussing theories, opinions and research. It does all this in an admirable way, but it also gives some great advice to the reader – about how to deal with a ‘always on’ world of ubiquitous computing. It’s realistic in its judgment of this ‘always on’ era, but also liberating as it describes the internal and external literacies which we can use to make the world into a better place.
It’s the kind of book which changes your life – for some maybe small but meaningful changes, for others big changes.
Read also: Becoming Net Smart with Howard Rheingold.
This work by rolandlegrand is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International