100 Things We've Lost to the Internet by Pamela Paul - Book Review #327

 

The author is the editor of the New York Times Book Review.

A lot of what is on the list is obvious, telephone booths, land lines, paper books, and cameras.

But she not only delves into what is lost and how it has changed but how personal each technology and interaction was.  

Some things have been gained while others are missed.

I found the book balanced and humane.

Would I go back?  No way.  I like living in the future.  Most of my everyday experience today is what I dreamed about when I was young. 

This book helped me remember where we've come from without feeling sad about it.

It's just an exploration of how things have changed in the span of half a human lifetime.  This kind of reflection is important to be aware of since all of the innovations in the book have crept up slowly.  It's easy not to notice.

Thank goodness there are people out there who do notice and take the time to share it with us.

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier - Book Report #318

 I've been reading the book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier.  In it he made a chilling observation; how the consumption of news is no longer a shared experience.  In the pre-social media times folks would get their news from television, radio or newspapers.  Everybody got the same message.

Picture this, we are in a large room with dozens of people, or a football game, it doesn't matter, if everybody was looking at their phones at the same time, all looking at the news feed on Facebook, not one feed would be the same!  The algorithms choose what is presented to each individual, tailored to their browning history.

You can see how this could cause confusion among folks, because nobody is getting the same story.  Social media, being what it is, is not not held to the same standards as traditional journalism and therefore has the ability to muddy the waters of trust.

The trouble with algorithms is that they are not working for US, they are working for the social media companies.  They are designed to keep us "engaged" and to stay on their platforms for as long as possible.  These algorithms don't care HOW they keep us scrolling and they all eventually learn that negative stories are more powerful "engagement" tools than positive ones.

By law, traditional broadcast media must present fact-checked and balanced stories.  Do they sometimes get it wrong?  Absolutely!  They are run by humans after all.  But humans are guided by a moral imperative (some more than others to be sure) and we have structures of checks and balances to keep people who are reporting and broadcasting the news accountable.   The black boxes that feed us the news on social media platforms have no such morals and have a different goal than the reporting of the best version of the truth available at the time.

Lanier is a compelling writer and has a sense of humor about the predicament we find ourselves in today.  

Recommended.  It'll make you think about what you're doing with your phone.