Net Smart: How to Thrive Online (Mit Press)

It's a pleasure to follow Howard Rheingold on this provocative journey into how best to make sense of the near-now through developing some new and distinct basic competencies. In a way the book is Howard's travelogue through his own cognitive atlas as he sagely builds a set of models for how to now only survive, but thrive in the face of ever-accelerating demands on attention and in the sheer volume of information encountered daily.As Rheingold skillfully builds his case for acquiring a new set of tools with which to deal with information, he also introduces us to a plethora of experts across a broad swath of disciplines: IT, engineering, learning, cognitive science, and neuroscience to flesh out the concepts he's inventing to help himself make better sense of the world. At the same time, the book provides detailed step-by-step examples of how to implement the dashboard, Radars, agents, and sensors that Howard has arrayed to bring coherence and amenity to his own info-space.At the book's heart is a key notion of Infotention-a neologism Rheingold coined, and which really sits at the middle of a radical proposition. Developing the cognitive capacity to effectively adopt a "mind-machine combination of brainpowered attention skills and computer-powered information filters" is a deceptively simple proposition with deep implications. Very little in most people's education provides them with the ability to effectively develop the mindset of focus and awareness that Infotention calls for.Rheingold also brings a deep understanding of the underpinnings of the social platforms that have exploded on to the scene. The book explores deeply and from a variety of perspectives, how much we have learned about ourselves as social beings in the past quarter century, and how that knowledge can be used in association with social networks to develop a new and more self-aware society. At the same time the book acknowledges the concerns that arise when network platforms turn into surveillance tools. Rheingold makes the case for a balanced and aware approach, illustrating with his own humane approach to developing limits and guidelines for behaving in the social sphere.Finally, the book provides a mind map for understanding how learning online is emerging as its own distinct discipline. Rheingold expounds holographically about how learning is being transformed by social affordances, by new understanding derived from neuroscience, and through the effort of brave teachers who are hacking education from within and without. With subtlety but also with a sense of urgency, Rheingold explores the ways in which the inherited understanding of and approaches to learning stand to be up-ended through the intervention of online means.

Net Smart is a wonderfully informative book filled with deep wisdom and illuminating insights into how to live life both as a productive individual, as well as an effective global citizen in the online-mediated world of The 21st Century. Howard has done a fine job of weaving together numerous strands in the braid of meaning to craft a book that succeeds in providing a compelling narrative for context combined with practical advice for tactics.Howard offers Five Literacies as a baseline requirement for anyone who interacts with computers, smart phones, tablets, social media and their related networks. A comprehensive understanding and clear explication of how we human beings have always and continue to co-evolve with our tools is exactly what one would expect from a man who was an Editor at The Whole Earth Review and who has spent the better part of 30 years living and researching life online.I came away from this book with a much enlarged understanding of the roles that the internet, the worldwide web, social media, history, politics, personal responsibility and a sense of larger purpose are playing in the collective discovery of a future for humanity that will work for the majority of people on Earth - a prerequisite we'd all do well to recognize as necessary to ensure our species' survival. It is not yet a given that this is the path that we will collectively take.I highly recommend this book for anyone with a curious mind, a feeling for history and a sense of purpose and adventure.

I used this book in a social media course I'm teaching this semester. The book is a good introduction to digital media, and I think my students got a lot out of it. There's nothing really revolutionary or original in here, but I don't think that was Rheingold's intention. For someone looking for a less academic, though still well thought out, book on digital media, I recommend this work.Oh, and it helps that Rheingold is a fun writer. He's been doing this for a long time, so it helped my students when he told stories about what it was like in the 70's and 80's. It gave him a lot of credibility and let me historically situate social media within larger historical trends.The one problem I had with the book was the self help tone to it all. Rheingold is big on mindfulness, and it can be a little repetitive. I'm also not 100% sure why we need the term because it seems like a more complicated way to conceptualize "think about what you do".

Howard Rheingold is renown for his insights and involvement in the use and social implications of emerging technology -especially in how networking facilitates interaction (especially the pervasive networking enabled by the internet) to the point of redefining what a community is. In this book he provides insights with lead to strategies and hints for how to participate and make the best use of social networking. Connecting with purpose, developing filters such as crap detection and working towards a Personal Learning Network (PLN) are offered as ways to not just cope with but to exploit the media to enrich your life and endeavors.The only drawback for me was that Howardʻs writing style is liberally infused with new terminology -much of which seems created "on the fly". On the one hand, this is new territory covering an old topic (communication) so it warrants new terminology to catch the nuances of the change but I just found it slow reading at times and having to re-read sections to fully understand what he is getting at.

Anyone who has anything to do with online communication, work or education is likely to find something of value in Howard Rheingold's recent book. Chapters are variable in terms of approach, content and topic but you can only be more informed after this reading. Plenty of practical tips on 'crap detection' and 'infotention' included. Good to see that such a pioneer who inspired many of us in the early pre-Web days of the Internet is still relevant and interesting.(I am reading the Kindle version on my mini-iPad on the many train and bus journeys I am required to take - transport that often has free wifi - amazing how far tech enhanced and networked communication has come since the early days!).

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Das Buch ist eine äußerst hilfreiche Anleitung, wie man in der heutigen Welt der digitalen Informationsflut mit dieser umgeht und möglichst sinnvoll, zeitsparend, produktiv und achtsam in der digitalen Welt arbeiten, kooperieren und zusammen Dinge entwickeln kann (insbesondere auch im Lehrbereich).Speziell das Kapitel über "Crap Detection" hat mir weiter die Augen geöffnet und die Notwendigkeit aufgezeigt, Kindern in der heutigen Welt schon früh den - richtigen - Umgang mit den Informationen im Internet zu zeigen.Wir alle müssen "Internet-schlau" (net smart) sein bzw. werden, um aktiv das Medium zu unserem Vorteil und Nutzen - auch für andere - einzusetzen und nicht nur passiv damit umzugehen. Dieses Buch gibt dafür ausreichend Tipps und Gründe.

To go again and again through the same motions of rules, propositions, etc how to 'behave' on the net is tiring. Most of us find our way anyway to detect the crap. Rheingold touches ever so slightly on the real calamity we obviously face: any new technology plays to the rules of their owners and controllers. All the information 'at your fingertips' didn't prevent (not just young) people to heartily throw themselves into a surveillance system of un-precedent dimensions. What did we think? That those with a very personal interest in controlling would miss the possibilities which the web offers?

Really interesting.This book is really interesting and fascinating: it teaches you loads of things that we usually don't get immediately.