An intriguing, astute counterbalance to the scaremongering that dominates many other books on digital life.
A technology and education expert examines how technology can make us better—if we let it.
Prensky (From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Learning, 2012, etc.) opens with the thought that "today’s technology is changing your mind—and all of our minds—for the better." He then rigorously examines the notion that technology improves not only our daily lives, but humanity as a whole. The author devotes many chapters to the questions surrounding the ways in which technology has changed our lives, predominantly in how we receive or use information. For example, Prensky addresses the question of whether making communication more concise (e.g., the 140-character limit of Twitter) is dumbing us down, taking the position that the ability to be succinct in our communication is a worthwhile skill and one we need in order to stay current. The most interesting chapters focus on education, a subject the author has covered at length in two previous books. Here, he posits that because many adults are uncomfortable with the latest innovations, they focus only on the possible downsides and too often limit children’s access to laptops, smartphones, tablets and other technological devices. It should come as no surprise, Prensky concludes, that students may have little interest in entering science, engineering or any technology-based fields when teachers "are continually broadcasting to them the unconscious message that technology is bad and best avoided." The author closes with a chapter on the coming "Singularity,” which refers to “the moment, not very far off…when our technology will become as powerful, and even more powerful than our human brains.” Referencing theories from science fiction writers and futurists (including Ray Kurzweil), this ending seems an odd, speculative conclusion in an otherwise reasonable, practical book.
An intriguing, astute counterbalance to the scaremongering that dominates many other books on digital life.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-230-33809-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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