After skimming this book, I see that the author focuses a lot on telling the reader the way humans work and the way the internet works in order to tell the humans how to make the internet work their way. This is reflected in the illustrations, whose main subjects are always human. Several of the chapters have italicized paragraphs at the beginning, which seem like a sort of abstract of the chapter.
Early Social Proof
When I posted on some social sites that I was reading this book, I asked, “What’s the best way to go about life & digital life in the Digital Age?” I received some responses on Facebook: my aunt and cousin “liked” the status, and my mom gave a couple of pieces of advice to answer that question. They were concerned with protecting one’s digital identity and reputation, with passwords and posting intelligently. While it wasn't quite the angle I’m looking at, her response does reflect the “be careful” attitude my family has about internet activity.
Similar Books
When I looked for similar books on Amazon and Google
Books, both search engines recommended more of Rushkoff’s books. Amazon
recommended three – Coercion: Why We
Listen to What “They” Say; Life,
Inc.: How Corporatism Conquered the World, and How WE Can Take It Back; and
Present Shock: When Everything Happens
Now.” Google Books just included the latter. Present Shock also happens to be more current that the book I’m
reading; it was published in this year, whereas the other was published in
2011. It seems to delve further into the “command” of one of the chapters in Program or be Programmed: “Do Not Be
Always On.” Other books the engines recommended are also about the psychology
of the internet, how business can use the internet and how corporations have
taken over the internet; and even Unbored:
The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun.
Who Cares?
When searching for this book and its author on Twitter, I found several mentions of Rushkoff and his book from people in several countries and of several backgrounds. Usually, though, their backgrounds had something to do with computers or brand marketing. There were also YouTube links to the author’s presentations about the book’s message, and links to a couple of interview articles. When searching on Facebook, I found a fan page for the book which is not very active and has 268 likes (now 269, with my like). However, there were several interesting articles posted, which told me that Rushkoff publicly took himself off of Facebook, and also that computer ignorance is a threat to personal freedoms, since technical ignorance is being exploited in courtrooms. I shared that article on my Facebook page and on Google+. There was also a Facebook page with this book’s name, which mostly had programmer jokes.
On Google+, I mostly found links to Rushkoff’s work but I
also found further explorations of the concept in education and even medicine.
Recommendations of his work were generally more thoughtful than those on
Twitter, since there is more space to speak on Google +. For example, John Wohn
wrote four paragraphs about the book, beginning with, “Don't
be put off by the title; Rushkoff is not (exactly) saying that everyone needs
to be a Java programmer.” I even found a meme.
Formal Reviews
I didn't find a formal review of Rushkoff’s book on our
HBLL’s aggregate database, although I did find that he has written articles
more than once for CNN. What I have seen so far tells me that he is very respected
in his work and has several platforms to speak from. The closest thing to a
formal review that I found was an enthusiastic blog-style review and interview article on
Wired.com.
Informal Reviews
The informal reviews I found critiqued the book and
mainly found it to their liking. ChristianHumanist.org said that the book
mainly asks “ten penetrating questions” rather than giving commands, which I
think, based on what I’ve learned so far, is a great way to put it. I was glad
to see in another article that there’s more to each “command” than its chapter
title and a short summary, several versions of which I have already read in
other articles. I also learned that this book won the “Neil Postman Award”
(Neil Postman and Douglass Rushkoff are both Jewish and write about
technology).
Course Inclusion
I
found the syllabi from several classes which use Rushkoff’s book as a textbook.
Some were a little surprising; though there were several computing classes
requiring the book, it is also required in a writing class, a gaming class, and
a major part of the Fall 2013 Introduction to Music Technology class at the
University of Florida. One of the computing classes looks similar to a Digital Humanities web
publishing class I’m currently taking, and I think including the book in that
context would help incorporate more humanities skills in the course.
Multimedia
There are several YouTube videos of Rushkoff speaking
about the concepts of this book and of his other books. They range from a
minute to over an hour. On Flickr, someone posted notes that they drew, perhaps
at one of Rushkoff’s speeches. A phrase which intrigued me was “Companies
should get their friends to friend each other.” Does this mean that companies should get their "friends"/competitors to network with each other?
First Impressions of the Book
On
my first read of the book, I noticed Rushkoff's narrative of internet/media/human
history. There’s one for nearly every “command.” Sure, the narrative is occasionally meladramatic and oversimplified – for example, “Until interactivity, we were defenseless
emotional targets for the advertiser,” (Kindle Locations 293-294) – but it gets
his point across and helps put the “command” into perspective. His simplicity is
one of the things which makes this book so accessible.
The
point which was most novel to me was his explanation of how digital media has
altered our thinking without most of us realizing it, valuing “the recent over
the relevant” (Kindle Locations 361-362) and “offloading our thinking” (Kindle
Location 382) and mental processes onto our computers and the Web. And by the way, the note above which mentioned companies' friends? It was saying that businesses should help their fans network with each other, to reinforce each others' patronizing of their business.
My Thinking So Far
I can understand why people recommend the book, and I look forward to reading it more in depth. I would like to examine more deeply the digital biases he points out, like the "choice filter" and attempting to be "always on" like the computer is. I'm not sure I agree with him on a section about how the digital world narrows our decisions in general, so I would like to look into that more. I might try to get my mom to listen to the audiobook so that we can discuss some of the concepts our family culture is more against, like sacrificing complete privacy for an online reputation.
