I began my search on Amazon by looking for
topics within the information society that I find relatable and interesting. I
decided to search social media since it is one of the most recent additions to
the information society, and also part of my daily life. I found a few
interesting books on Facebook, but they were all published over two years ago
when Facebook was just being to expand.
I
decided to search Twitter instead since it is more recent and found a book
called, Twitter: Social Communication in the Twitter Age. Although the
book looks interesting I was skeptical of the quality since it was very recent,
expensive and only had one review. After being searched on the other sites
still very little came up, which was questionable.
The next book I found by looking at related
purchases. The book was about the digital divide, which we have gone over in
multiple sections of the FIG and is an important effect of the information
society. The books goes into the arguments for and against social networking
and would be an interesting topic but once again there were not many reviews or
other information found.
In the end I decided to read The Shallows:
What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr. Since we have
already read sections by Nicholas Carr within the FIG classes I knew that it
was a reputable source. Also, the reviews on were overall very positive and
there were already hundreds available. With over one hundred reviews giving the
book five stars, I thought it was the most dependable to be informative and
interesting. When searching worldcat.org, it was the book with the most results
and then on Library Thing it seems to be the most popular of the books I have
found.
This book has been reviewed in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Science News, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly and many more. Many of
the reviewers are professors of universities. Tricia Farwell, from the Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
is a professor of advertising and Mark Meier from the Virginia Quartley Review is a chemistry professor. Since they are
all of different teaching backgrounds it will be interesting to see the
different ways in which they interpret the book. Overall, the highly positive reviews
of the book and the amount of information found on other sites made me excited
and interested in reading more from Nicholas Carr.
Work Cited
Meier, Mark Shively. "The Shallows: What the Internet is
Doing to our Brains." The Virginia Quarterly Review 86.3
(2010): 195.ProQuest. Web. 17 Oct. 2013.
Farwell, Tricia M. "The Shallows: What the Internet is
Doing to our Brains." Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 88.1
(2011): 198-9. ProQuest. Web. 17 Oct. 2013.
Zelkowitz, Rachel. "The Shallows: What the Internet is
Doing to our Brains." Science News Aug 28 2010: 28. ProQuest. Web.
17 Oct. 2013 .
2 comments:
When I did a quick Internet search for this book, I found out it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize - very cool!
It should prove to be an excellent and challenging read, and I bet will be very helpful to you in this class as we explore more themes about the new media and digital technology. Good choice!
Katie,
I found both of the books you talked about during my search and found them both vey interesting! I think it is a very good choice, especially since we have dealt with this author's work before in other FIG classes. You present some great ideas about current topics of discussion such as the digital divide and the Internet's impact on our developing society and in our personal lives.
I can't wait to see what you have to say about this book!
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