Nicholas Carr

lxi, 641 pages : 23 cm

Examines the influences computer-delivered information may have on human cognition using Marshall McLuhan as the hook, the history of communication as the trajectory, and brain science as the tool.

"A freewheeling, sharp-shooting indictment of our tech-besotted culture by the Pulitzer Prize finalist. Over the past dozen years, Nicholas Carr has made his name as an agenda-setting writer on our complicated relationship with technology. Gathering posts from his blog Rough Type as well as seminal pieces published in The Atlantic, the MIT Technology Review, and the Wall Street Journal, he now provides an alternative history of the digital age, chronicling its roller-coaster crazes and crashes (remember MySpace or Second Life?). Ground-breaking essays such as 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' and 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Privacy' dissect the logic behind Silicon Valley's 'liberation mythology,' laying bare how technology has both enriched and imprisoned us-- sometimes at the same time. A forward-looking new essay rounds out the collection. With searching assessments of topics from the future of work and play to free choice and the fate of reading, Carr once again challenges us to see our world anew"--Provided by publisher. In this freewheeling, sharp-shooting indictment of our tech-besotted culture, Carr gathers posts from his blog Rough Type as well as seminal published pieces in order to provide an alternative history of the digital age. He lays bare how technology has both enriched and imprisoned us-- sometimes at the same time-- and challenges us to see our world anew.

xxii, 360 pages ; 21 cm

"Every year, companies spend more than $2 trillion on computer and communications equipment and services. Underlying these enormous expenditures is one of modern business's most deeply held assumptions: that information technology is increasingly critical to competitive advantage and strategic success." "In this book, Nicholas G. Carr calls the common wisdom into question, contending that IT's strategic importance has actually dissipated as its core functions have become available and affordable to all. Expanding on the controversial Harvard Business Review article that provoked a storm a debate around the world, Does IT Matter? shows that IT - like earlier infrastructural technologies such as railroads and electric power - is steadily evolving from a profit-boosting proprietary resource to a simple cost of doing business." "Carr draws on convincing historical and contemporary examples to explain why innovations in hardware, software, and networking are rapidly replicated by competitors, neutralizing their strategic power to set one business apart from the pack. He shows why IT's emergence as a shared and standardized infrastructure is a natural and necessary process that may ultimately deliver huge economic and social benefits."--BOOK JACKET.