The New York Times Book Review - Clay Shirky
Carr's natural length is the essay. The best material here is the longest, because his core commitment is not denunciation but reframing. "Long Player," his 2007 argument about the album format as an aesthetic unit, is subtle and capacious…Then there's "The Love That Lays the Swale in Rows," for my money the best essay Carr has ever written. The piece contains the thesis for much of his work: "Technology is a pillar and a glory of civilization. But it is also a test that we set for ourselves." Carr's great concern is wondering whether we can pass that test.
New Scientist - Sally Adee
"[F]ull of wry vignettes and articles lampooning the motivated enthusiasm and game-changing promises of Silicon Valley’s tech bro elite… by turns cute, funny or chilling. And it’s more than the sum of its parts."
Discover Magazine
"Carr, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, takes on modern life’s short attention spans and worship of the superficial in a . . . rapid-fire volley of ideas deceptively designed to engage at a depth greater than 140 characters. By turns wry and revelatory, and occasionally maddening, Carr succeeds at shaking the reader out of screen-zombie complacency."
Time - Rana Foroohar
"The prescient Nicholas Carr punches a hole in Silicon Valley hubris."
New York Journal of Books - Richard Cytowic
"Carr’s best hits for those who missed the last decade of his stream of thoughtful commentary about our love affair with technology and its effect on our relationships."
Kirkus Reviews
2016-05-31
Popular technology guru Carr (The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, 2014, etc.) offers a skeptical chronicle of the wonders of the digital revolution.Since 2005, the author has kept running tabs on our high-tech age on his blog Rough Type, where he considers and sometimes eviscerates the latest overblown claims of the gods of Silicon Valley. In this bright, fun, telling book, he gathers 80 engaging blog posts from some 1,600 published through 2015, plus a selection of essays and reviews from the Atlantic and elsewhere. "We may blow kisses to agrarians like Jefferson and tree-huggers like Thoreau, but we put our faith in Edison and Ford, Gates and Zuckerberg," writes Carr. "It is the technologists who shall lead us." While tech leaders have promised a new world (with Bill Gates "still pitching a ‘digital lifestyle' that nobody wants"), the author makes clear his own penchant for "tools for exploring and enjoying the world that is." He takes strong exception to innumerable claims made for the internet: that it has liberated us from couch-potato lives ("horseshit"), raised us to a higher consciousness, spurred serendipity, and given us splendid gifts in Wikipedia ("a hodge-podge of dubious factoids") and Twitter ("the medium of Narcissus"). Occasioned by his own observations and a close reading of new studies and books, Carr holds forth on major issues of the past decade, including copyright, innovation, online courses, e-books, video games, artificial intelligence, privacy, online sharing, automation, raising the virtual child, and smartphones. Throughout, his emphasis is on the human side of life in a digitized world. "The desire for privacy is strong; vanity is stronger," he writes of Facebook's business model. And: "Who you are is what you do between notifications." Included are such notable essays as "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Some entries are slight, most others are nuanced and satisfying. A collection that reminds us that critical thinking is the best way to view the mixed blessings of rampant technology. A treat for Carr fans.
