Writing the Essay

Okay - five texts in and time's up for the reading. I might read a sneaky bit of Anthem in the shop when I get a break on Saturday, but aside from that, I'm moving onto analysis and essay-writing. This is just a post to recommend three of the sociological sources I've used so far. What with the internet, books are getting forgotten as non-fiction sources; trawling through 300 pages of someone's thesis, however wonderfully written, is, admittedly, a daunting and miserable prospect in a busy life. However, Wikipedia is not a substitute. Editors have left the book that length for a reason, and it seems almost ironic to reject a book about technology's impending destruction of the human soul in favour of Googling the synopsis.

Heather Brooke's The Revolution Will Be Digitised
Heather Brooke is an American journalist and campaigner for the freedom of information, and her 2011 book worships the Net's propensity to aid democracy. At times, it reeks of Hollywood: all the little children walk into a better future where information is free and people are powerful and you are left with a tear in your eye. It could just be my preference for cynicism, but Brooke is perhaps a little optimistic in her view of a world made better by the World Wide Web; it's certainly a counterargument to the very pessimistic views of the dystopian writers, anyway.

Evgeny Morozov's The Net Delusion
Evgeny Morozov makes the point that the Net is only a freeing force when its users stop Youtubing cute kittens and start using it for social change. He argues that there is censorship of the net on a huge scale, contrary to many popular right-wing arguments about its uncontrollability; even when governments aren't shutting things down, Google is filtering, advertising companies are targeting. We are even censoring ourselves on the net, helping targeted ads companies to define us, box us, and develop us in our chosen direction through our acceptance of their suggestions. Also, he directly references Huxley in saying that the human race has an "endless appetite for distractions", and that mindless entertainment is what the Net truly gives the procrastinating masses, rather than change. We seek comfort in the world as it is, and once we have found it posting vacuously about ourselves on Facebook, inequality and injustice will remain unquestioned.

Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget
As a software developer himself, Lanier recognises the dangers of technology, the way it stands for freedom and progress and yet so often closes more doors than it opens, boxes things up for human consumption where the potential is so much more. Or at least was, before each new development has its parameters set. Lanier uses the example of MIDI music: where a musical note was once indefinable, almost transcendental, distinguishable from other sounds in its beauty by the human mind, the MIDI note (MIDI a musical transcription and editing software invented in the 80s) is a discrete bit of data, movable, almost artless. If the singer makes a mistake, sure, we can now fix it easily, make a vast array more electronic noises, but then why care about talent, about skill? It's a personal bugbear, I guess, but his points definitely got to me. Have a listen to this. Not for long though (I picked this video for its ironic visual).