Smarter Than You Think
How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better
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- CHF 11.00
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- CHF 11.00
Beschreibung des Verlags
From the ‘Wired’ and ‘New York Times Magazine’ contributor, a brilliant examination into how the internet is profoundly changing the way we think.
In this groundbreaking book, Clive Thompson argues that the internet is boosting our brainpower, encouraging new ways of thinking, and making us more – not less – intelligent as is so often claimed.
Our lives have been changed irrevocably by the rise of the internet. But as we rely more and more on machines to help us think, our thinking is becoming richer and more complex. We learn more, retain it longer, write in curious new forms, and even think entirely new types of thoughts.
‘Smarter Than You Think’ is filled with stories of people who are using technology to boost their brains. Meet the ageing millionaire who is saving a digital copy of everything that happens to him, the leading artificial-intelligence researcher who is creating software that will sense your mood and many other fascinating characters who are reaching new heights with digital help.
Lucidly written and argued, ‘Smarter Than You Think’ is a breathtaking original look at our Brave New World.
Reviews
‘Eye-opening and optimistic’ Economist, Books of the Year
‘Judicious and insightful … Thompson avoids both the hype and the hand-wringing so common among digital age pontificators’ Walter Isaacson, New York Times
‘Almost without noticing it, the internet has become our intellectual exoskeleton. Rather than just observing this evolution, Clive Thompson takes us to the people, places and technologies driving it, bringing deep reporting, storytelling and analysis to one of the most profound shifts in human history’ Chris Anderson
‘[An] enjoyable study of the digital world … both fascinating and thought-provoking … [Thompson] remains admirably sober about the limits of technology’s’ edifying influence on us: technology, he reminds us, is only ever as smart as the person using it’ Sunday Times
‘Thompson is a talented storyteller … The world outside … is, on balance, much weirder than you think’ The Times
‘Thompson has started an important debate in this lively and accessible book’ Scotsman
‘We should be grateful to have such a clear-eyed and lucid interpreter of our changing technological culture as Clive Thompson. Smarter Than You Think is an important, insightful book about who we are, and who we are becoming’
Joshua Foer, New York Times bestselling author of Moonwalking with Einstein
About the author
Clive Thompson is one of the most prominent thinkers on technology and its impact on daily life. He is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and Wired magazine. This is his first book.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Does technology make us lazy, incapable of thinking smartly about solutions to cultural problems? Does it make us shallower thinkers, ever reliant on computers to help us mold our responses to any issues? In this optimistic, fast-paced tale about the advent of technology and its influence on humans, journalist Thompson addresses these and other questions. He admits that we often allow ourselves to be used by facets of new technologies and that we must exercise caution to avoid this; yet, he demonstrates, digital tools can have a huge positive impact on us, for they provide us with infinite memory, the ability to discover connections between people, places, or ideas previously unknown to us, and new and abundant avenues for communication and publishing. For example, Thompson shares the tale of Gordon Bell, who walks around equipped with a small fish-eye camera and a tiny audio recorder. Bell uses these devices to record every moment of his life, which he records on a "lifelog" on his laptop. Because of these devices, Bell and we, if we embrace the technology lives in a world of infinite memory. Using technology also helps us make connections, not only with old friends on Facebook or other social media but with the world around us as we search for knowledge and facts about it. Thompson points out that "transactive memory" which arises out of our need to understand details and to connect to larger sets of facts outside our own limited social or familial setting allows "us to perform at higher levels, accomplishing acts of reasoning that are impossible for us alone." In the end, Thompson believes, these features of digital tools will allow us to think more deeply and become more deeply connected both as individuals and as a society.
