Against the Machine: Being Human in the Era of the Electronic Mob. by Siegel, Lee - 2008

London: Serpent's Tail / Profile Books, 2008. Paperback, very good condition, rear cover corner creased. 182 pp. A ruthless challenge to the conventional wisdom about the Internet. Argues that our ever-deepening immersion in life online doesn't just reshape the ordinary rhythms of our days; it also reshapes our minds and culture, in ways that we haven't yet reckoned. The web and its cultural correlatives and byproducts - such as the dominance of reality television and the rise of the bourgeois bohemian - have turned privacy into performance, play into commerce, and confused self-expression with art. And even as technology gurus ply their trade using the language of freedom and democracy, we cede more and more control of our freedom and individuality to the needs of the machine. This book will force you to see our culture - for better and worse - in an entirely new way. (Later subtitle: How the Web Is Reshaping Culture and Commerce -- And Why It Matters.).