Technology
Extremely online : the untold story of fame, influence, and power on the internet
Taylor Lorenz
302.231 /Lorenz
Technology, History
"For over a decade, Taylor Lorenz has been the authority on internet culture, documenting its far-reaching effects on all corners of our lives. Her reporting is serious yet entertaining and illuminates deep truths about ourselves and the lives we create online. In her debut book, Extremely Online, she reveals how online influence came to upend the world, demolishing traditional barriers and creating whole new sectors of the economy. Lorenz shows this phenomenon to be one of the most disruptive changes in modern capitalism. By tracing how the internet has changed what we want and how we go about getting it, Lorenz unearths how social platforms' power users radically altered our expectations of content, connection, purchasing, and power. Lorenz documents how moms who started blogging were among the first to monetize their personal brands online, how bored teens who began posting selfie videos reinvented fame as we know it, and how young creators on TikTok are leveraging opportunities to opt out of the traditional career pipeline. It's the real social history of the internet. Emerging seemingly out of nowhere, these shifts in how we use the internet seem easy to dismiss as fads. However, these social and economic transformations have resulted in a digital dynamic so unappreciated and insurgent that it ultimately created new approaches to work, entertainment, fame, and ambition in the 21st century. Extremely Online is the inside, untold story of what we have done to the internet, and what it has done to us." --Amazon.
The PARA method : simplify, organize, and master your digital life
Tiago Forte
658.4038/ Forte
Business, Technology, Self Help
Living a modern life requires juggling a ton of information. But we were never taught how to manage this information effectively so that we can find what we need when we need it. In The PARA Method, Tiago Forte outlines a simple and intuitive four-step system that will help us sort all the information flooding our brains into four major categories—Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives—allowing us to manage our commitments while achieving our goals and dreams. -Projects are specific, short-term efforts that you are actively working on with a certain goal in mind, such as completing a website or renovating your bathroom. -Areas are the larger, ongoing areas of responsibility (health, finances, etc.) that encompass those specific projects. -Resources include content on a range of topics you’re interested in or that could be useful for your projects and areas. -Archives include anything from the previous three categories that is now inactive, but you want to save for future reference. With his easy-to-understand and engaging voice, Forte outlines his best practices and tips on how to successfully implement PARA, along with deep dives on everything from how to adopt habits to stay organized to how to use this system to enhance your focus. The PARA Method can be implemented in just seconds but has the power to transform the trajectory of your work and life using the power of digital organization ~Amazon.
A vey quick, informative read. Although a bit wordy in my opinion, it is packed with good approaches, guidance and mental framing for taming and easily managing all the files, documents, and other saved bits floating around on your computer and other digital devices. The information found here can also be applied to the workplace and any sized group or organization. -Paul
How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Maria Ressa
OverDrive eBook
Technology, Memoir, Political, History
Introduction by Amal ClooneyFrom the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, an impassioned and inspiring memoir of a career spent holding power to account.Maria Ressa is one of the most renowned international journalists of our time. For decades, she challenged corruption and malfeasance in her native country, the Philippines, on its rocky path from an authoritarian state to a democracy. As a reporter from CNN, she transformed news coverage in her region, which led her in 2012 to create a new and innovative online news organization, Rappler. Harnessing the emerging power of social media, Rappler crowdsourced breaking news, found pivotal sources and tips, harnessed collective action for climate change, and helped increase voter knowledge and participation in elections.But by their fifth year of existence, Rappler had gone from being lauded for its ideas to being targeted by the new Philippine government, and made Ressa an enemy of her country's most powerful man: President Duterte. Still, she did not let up, tracking government seeded disinformation networks which spread lies to its own citizens laced with anger and hate. Hounded by the state and its allies using the legal system to silence her, accused of numerous crimes, and charged with cyberlibel for which she was found guilty, Ressa faces years in prison and thousands in fines.There is another adversary Ressa is battling. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is also the story of how the creep towards authoritarianism, in the Philippines and around the world, has been aided and abetted by the social media companies. Ressa exposes how they have allowed their platforms to spread a virus of lies that infect each of us, pitting us against one another, igniting, even creating, our fears, anger, and hate, and how this has accelerated the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world. She maps a network of disinformation—a heinous web of cause and effect—that has netted the globe: from Duterte's drug wars to America's Capitol Hill; Britain's Brexit to Russian and Chinese cyber-warfare; Facebook and Silicon Valley to our own clicks and votes.Democracy is fragile. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is an urgent cry for Western readers to recognize and understand the dangers to our freedoms before it is too late. It is a book for anyone who might take democracy for granted, written by someone who never would. And in telling her dramatic and turbulent and courageous story, Ressa forces readers to ask themselves the same question she and her colleagues ask every day: What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?
An inspiring, fact-filled, and necessary read from 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, journalist and co-founder of the Philippines' leading digital media company Rappler. Ressa recounts interactions with Big Tech executives and politicians that will make you feel frustrated at tech companies' prioritization of money and "growth" over stopping the spread of disinformation and misinformation. Read this to learn more about how social media can define our thoughts, actions, and feelings and how to embrace and understand our intellectual freedoms before it's too late. -Annie
The end of the world is just the beginning : mapping the collapse of globalization
Peter Zeihan
338.91 /Zeihan
Political, History, Technology
"As isolationism and realism become the dominant values of a previously interconnected world, the logic that motivated international relations and global trade must be reevaluated. Zeihan uses a mixture of geographical knowledge, political history, and sharp analysis to predict the shape of the next twenty years on the world stage"--
I couldn't put this book down, and the subtitle is the reason why. There is so much information here about how geography, agriculture, transport, finance, and demographics will shape the fate of nations for the worse in the very near future. China, in the author's view, is near collapse at any moment. Famine is inevitable. I guess I'll believe it when I see it. -Tom
The great air race : glory, tragedy, and the dawn of American aviation
John (Journalist) Lancaster
629.1309 /Lancaster
History, Technology
Lancaster recounts the incredible, untold story of the transcontinental air race of October 1919. The contest awakened Americans to the practical possibilities of flight-- and riveted the nation. Most of the pilots were veterans of World War I, flying DH-4s and Fokkers that were almost comically ill-suited for long distance travel. The aviators braved blizzards and mechanical failure, landing in cornfields or at the edges of cliffs. The race was a test of endurance that many pilots didn't finish because of exhaustion, mechanical failure-- or their deaths. -- adapted from jacket
A lot of was riding on this first of its kind coast-to-coast airplane race. Billy Mitchell was hoping to have Congress create an independent air force. The post office wanted to establish an airmail service. Multiple entrepreneurs wanted the public to buy into the idea of air travel. The great transcontinental air race of October 1919 was going to prove these things were needed and practical. Lancaster provides a detailed portrait on the state of aeronautics after World War I, the characters and personalities involved in the race, and the repercussions of a successful, yet deadly contest. Air historians or people who love micro-histories will enjoy this book. -Anne M
Imaginable : how to see the future coming and feel ready for anything--even things that seem impossible today
Jane McGonigal
303.49 /McGonigal
Nonfiction, Technology, Science, Self Help
"War in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly frequent climate disasters--events we might have called "unimaginable" or "unthinkable" in the past are now reality. Today it feels more challenging than ever to feel unafraid, hopeful, and equipped to face the future with optimism. How do we map out our lives when it seems impossible to predict what the world will be like next week, let alone next year or next decade? What we need now are strategies to help us recover our confidence and creativity in facing uncertain futures. In Imaginable, Jane McGonigal draws on the latest scientific research in psychology and neuroscience to show us how to train our minds to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable. She invites us to play with the provocative thought experiments and future simulations she's designed exclusively for this book..." -- Inside front book jacket.
I started listening to the audiobook version of this on hoopla (https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/15013684) and wound up buying my own copy to switch back and forth. Some parts are better read so you can stop and ponder McGonigal's probing questions and go through her "creativity training." I mean, who doesn't love creativity training?! Now some of us ICPL staff are in an Imaginable book club where we imagine the future of libraries and the Iowa City community. It's been a fun discussion so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing which of our predictions comes true. -Melody
Chaos machine : the inside story of how social media rewired our minds and our world.
Fisher, Max
302.231/Fisher (NEW)
Political, Technology, Health
New York Times reporter Fisher debuts with a scathing account of the manifold ills wrought by social media. He explores toxic misogyny, recounting the unsavory particulars of "GamerGate," in which a woman video game developer was subjected to "collective harassment" after false allegations that she slept with a journalist in exchange for a positive review of her game. Other examples of the dark side of social media include anti-Muslim hate speech in Myanmar proliferating on Facebook, the spread of anti-vaccine rhetoric during the pandemic, and efforts by Russia to interfere with U.S. elections. Fisher also breaks down the tactics used by social media companies to get users to spend more time online, among them notifications that are meant to set off feel-good dopamine releases in the brain, a tactic similar to the "intermittent variable reinforcement" used by casinos. There's no shortage of books lamenting the evils of social media, but what's impressive here is how Fisher brings it all together: the breadth of information, covering everything from the intricacies of engagement-boosting algorithms to theories of sentimentalism, makes this a one-stop shop. It's a well-researched, damning picture of just what happens online. Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly.
All the awful stuff online, all of its awful effects, all in one non-awful book. -Candice
The secret history of home economics : how trailblazing women harnessed the power of home and changed the way we live
Danielle Dreilinger
640.922 /Dreilinger
History, Technology
"The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics. The term "home economics" may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken cakes. But obscured by common conception is the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople that were otherwise foreclosed. In The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field's history from small farms to the White House, from Victorian suffragists to Palo Alto techies. Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them; Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by Black women who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics' women, as they chose being single, shared lives with women, or tried for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a maligned subject to its rightful importance"--
I had no idea the field of home economics was so progressive and wide-reaching! I kept having to stop to share a fun piece of trivia I just learned. You'll recognize a lot of the influence today from the women of decades past. -Amanda
This is the kind of book that will be invaluable and useful to future readers interested in the evolution of the internet as we know it. I lived through all of this, and was not fully aware of the players or the context, or even some of the apps that thrust people into the spotlight. It's a fun read now for sure, but I think it will fill a spot in the discourse we need as we develop and innovate more. -Amanda