Because Internet

Finished July 1

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch

This book was fascinating. I've always been interested in language, poring over my mother's old linguistics textbooks when I was a kid, but this book brings a lot of linguistic theory into the now with its focus on how the internet changed the way we use language and the way that we communicate.

It sometimes looks back further at how other technology changed communication as well and looks at how societal change feeds the way language changes. For instance it looks at the telephone and how greetings were suggested and adapted for that new broadly adapted form of communication and compares that to the way that different pieces of the internet changed language and communication.

It looks at both formal and informal types of communication and generational differences between broad groups as the internet grew and changed and became part of everyday life. 

There was so much here in terms of ideas that made me think and bits of communication history I hadn't been fully aware of before. 

My favourite part was in the section on memes where the author talked about an embroidered piece that she made based on a common meme, that she then adapted to be more personal to herself.  She comments

Both memes and needlework are collective folk texts that spread because people remix and remake them. The words "text" and "textile" have a common origin, from a Proto-Indo-European root teks, "to weave." Writing and weaving are both acts of creation by bringing together. A storyteller is a spinner of yarns, and the internet's founding metaphor is of a web. If we go far enough back, before printing presses and cameras and photocopiers introduced the notion of faithful reproduction, all transmission is re-creation. Teks is also the root of the word "technology," which at one point meant a systematic treatise on an art or craft, or even a grammar, before it referred to a study of mechanical or industrial arts (a 1902 dictionary gives the examples of "spinning, metal-working, or brewing") and then to digital tech.

Since I am a needleworker, this really hit home for me. Since I also work with a lot of internet pieces, and have helped others navigate the internet as part of my job, this all connected for me. 

A fascinating look at language, social change, and human adaptation. 

Future Crimes

Finished March 17
Future Crimes by Mark Goodman

This book covers a lot of issues around internet security and privacy, and I liked the apt quotes drawn from entertainers, writers, politicians, scientists, and other sources.
The author uses examples to illustrate many of the concepts given here, and that really shows the effect on real people of some of these vulnerabilities.
The book is divided into three sections.
The first section sets the stage by introducing the vulnerabilities, with aforementioned examples. The concepts here include cybercrime as it first appeared, malware, and security vulnerabilities. Goodman shows how the global connectivity we now enjoy is also a weakness. He discusses how Moore's law, which is about exponential growth in technological change also applies to criminal technology. He looks at many of the "free" sites and programs we use, such as social media and discusses the realities of "terms and conditions" we accept and how we and our information are really products to the companies that run them, rather than customers. He looks at how all the data we have out there about ourselves is used and how the data, while seemingly benign by individual piece, adds up to big vulnerabilities for us. He also refutes the notion that not creating online profiles is a protection. He takes a close look at apps and the information they gather about us from contacts to GPS location. He reveals the industry of "friends" in social media and just how many don't exist will likely surprise you. He talks about the manipulation of data and how this can plant false information about you from location to actions.
The second section of the book takes a closer look at the criminal world that exists in the online world, something he refers to as Crime, Inc. He reveals the cutting edge nature of the technologies involved and how criminals are often in the group of early adopters of new technology. He discusses the various criminal roles that exist in the hierarchy of organized crime in this world. He talks about the nature of funding and how money gets moved around. He discusses hacking, both software and hardware and how the growth in Internet of Things, technologically-tied home access and controls, medical technology devices, robots and drones all open us up to being left vulnerable in ways we never dreamed of. He includes a section on biotech and its vulnerabilities to our safety.
The third section is more hopeful. Entitled Surviving Progress, it looks at ways to mitigate the vulnerabilities discussed in the earlier sections, things the industry should be doing, things we can do as individuals, and suggestions for how we can come together to tackle these issues in a way where more heads mean more protection.
I found this book fascinating, the first couple sections stomach-churning at times, but the last section giving some positive thoughts about how we can overcome the vulnerabilities.

The Shallows

Finished May 28
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains by Nicholas Carr, read by Paul Michael Garcia

I found this book fascinating. It isn't just about the internet and its influence on our physical brains and the way we think, although it is about that. It begins with a history of human communication, from oral storytelling, through the introduction of writing and reading, to the invention of the printing press, through newer media like movies, radio and television, showing how each change in communication resulted in changes to the way we think, and how we use our brains. It also has discussions around philosophy and how thought processes have changed. It looks at the science of research on the brain and the different viewpoints of what makes us human. It talks about the trend to refer to human functions in a machine-related way, and how machines replacing human functions affects us physically and mentally. Carr talks about his own experiences having difficulty in reading and writing with depth as he used the internet more, and how hard he found it to limit the time he spent online. Backed up by many different research studies that took place over many years, his arguments offer both hope and warning for the future. Highly recommended.

Check out this video about it.