Social Technology

Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are.

Byung-Chul Han, a star of German philosophy, continues his passionate critique of neoliberalism, trenchantly describing a regime of technological domination that, in contrast to Foucault’s biopower, has discovered the productive force of the psyche.

What do today’s young influencers know, that you don’t? Content Creator is a handy guide that will lead you through the process and give you proven tips for creating content that connects with people. It’s amazing what you can learn about yourself when you start creating instead of consuming. You never know how creative you are until you consistently come up with new ideas and produce great content.

Socrates is on trial for his life. He is charged with impiety and corrupting young people. He presents his own defense, explaining why he has devoted his life to challenging the most powerful and important people in the Greek world. The reason is that rich and famous politicians, priests, poets, and a host of others pretend to know what is good, true, holy, and beautiful, but when Socrates questions them, they are shown to be foolish rather than wise.

When Ashley Shew became a self-described "hard-of-hearing chemobrained amputee with Crohn's disease and tinnitus," there was no returning to "normal." Suddenly well-meaning people called her an "inspiration" while grocery shopping or viewed her as a needy recipient of technological wizardry. Most disabled people don't want what the abled assume they want—nor are they generally asked. In vibrant prose, Shew shows how we can create better narratives and more accessible futures by drawing from the insights of the cross-disability community.

An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today's social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests - how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change.

An invaluable guide to understanding the underlying machinery and technology that grabs our attention—and keeps us coming back by filling us with rage. The original internet was not designed to make us upset, distracted, confused, and outraged. But something unexpected happened at the turn...

Recent years have seen a revival of the heated culture wars of the 1990s, but this time its battleground is the Internet. On one side the alt-right ranges from the once obscure neo-reactionary and white separatist movements, to geeky subcultures like 4chan, to more mainstream manifestations such as the Trump-supporting gay libertarian Milo Yiannopolous. On the other side, struggle sessions and virtue signaling lurk behind a therapeutic language of trigger warnings and safe spaces. The feminist side of the online culture wars has its equally geeky subcultures.

Cyberspace is all around us. We depend on it for everything we do. We have reengineered our business, governance, and social relations around a planetary network unlike any before it. But there are dangers looming, and malign forces are threatening to transform this extraordinary domain. In Black Code, Ronald J. Deibert, a leading expert on digital technology, security, and human rights, lifts the lid on cyberspace and shows what's at stake for Internet users and citizens.

Everything is a computer. Ovens are computers that make things hot; refrigerators are computers that keep things cold. These computers - from home thermostats to chemical plants - are all online. All computers can be hacked. And Internet-connected computers are the most vulnerable. Forget data theft: Cutting-edge digital attackers can now crash your car, your pacemaker, and the nation’s power grid. In Click Here to Kill Everybody, renowned expert and best-selling author Bruce Schneier examines the hidden risks of this new reality.

An entertaining, scientifically rigorous exploration of the social and biological effects of our wireless world. The way we use technology is affecting our health and happiness. Engaging and entertaining yet scientifically rigorous, this fully revised and updated second edition of i-Minds comprehensively explores an era of screen-based technology's assimilation into our lives, pondering it as both godsend and plague. i-Minds is for anyone interested in fostering health and happiness or who is struggling with the role of screened technology in our lives.

Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self. He argues that our disconnection from one another and the natural world has mislaid the foundations of science, religion, money, technology, economics, medicine, and education as we know them. It has fired our near-pathological pursuit of technological Utopias even as we push ourselves and our planet to the brink of collapse.

Can a well-programmed machine do anything a human can - only better? Complex algorithms are buying our groceries, picking our partners, and driving our investments. They can navigate more data than a doctor or lawyer and act with greater precision. For many years we've taken solace in the notion that they can't create. But now that algorithms can learn and adapt, does the future of creativity belong to machines too?

The World in 2050 is a provocative journey into a future already under construction. It’s not just about artificial intelligence — it’s about what happens when society lets systems decide who is visible, valid, and valuable. This book blends speculative storytelling, real-world parallels, and sharp analysis to explore what happens when predictive scoring replaces human judgment — and when machines are authorized to make irreversible decisions. Experience algorithmic ghosting, risk profiling, and digital erasure — all based on real-world systems that are already shaping our present.

In Places of the Heart, Colin Ellard explores how our homes, workplaces, cities, and nature - places we escape to and can’t escape from - have influenced us throughout history and how our brains and bodies respond to different types of real and virtual space. As he describes the insight he and other scientists have gained from new technologies, he assesses the influence these technologies will have on our evolving environment and asks what kind of world we are, and should be, creating.

The creation of the microprocessor launched the digital age. The key technology allowing unprecedented integration, and the design of the world’s first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, were the achievement of Federico Faggin. In Silicon, internationally recognized inventor and entrepreneur Federico Faggin chronicles his “four lives”: his formative years in war-torn Northern Italy, his pioneering work in American microelectronics, his successful career as a high-tech entrepreneur, and his more recent explorations into the mysteries of consciousness.

The grid is an accident of history and of culture, in no way intrinsic to how we produce, deliver and consume electrical power. Yet this is the system the United States ended up with, a jerry-built structure now so rickety and near collapse that a strong wind or a hot day can bring it to a grinding halt. The grid is now under threat from a new source: renewable and variable energy, which puts stress on its logics as much as its components.

More people than ever are turning to podcasts for on-demand, mobile entertainment and information. Podcasting for Dummies offers a fast and easy way to get the know-how you need to produce and distribute one of your very own. Written by a pair of podcasting pioneers, this book shares insight on the technology behind recording, editing, and sharing podcasts, along with tips and tricks on how to produce a pro-level podcast.

When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution.

Born in 1905 in the center of the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire, Viktor Frankl was a witness to the great political, philosophical, and scientific upheavals of the 20th century. In these stirring recollections, Frankl describes how as a young doctor of neurology in prewar Vienna, his disagreements with Freud and Adler led to the development of "the third Viennese School of Psychotherapy", known as logotherapy; recounts his harrowing trials in four concentration camps during the War; and reflects on the celebrity brought by Man's Search for Meaning in 1945.