Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
Brilliant expose! Detailed research and mindful analysis on the role that Silicon Valley and its products, including Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft etc., continue to play in surreptitiously snaking into our personal domain, violating privacy and taking over our very ability to think for ourselves.
The author does repeat herself time and again, a lapse that is overlooked when such a large volume of information is being shared and needs context to be provided for ready reference.
A must read!
The author does repeat herself time and again, a lapse that is overlooked when such a large volume of information is being shared and needs context to be provided for ready reference.
A must read!
I tried to get through this book but I ran out of time from the library. It was dense and redundant, but I get the main point that big tech is using all our data without informed consent to get us to buy more things through predicting our wants from post behaviors. I don’t love that for us
describing how data behemoths take the information trail that we leave online to profit from it and set up new networks of control. They can see us quite well but we see them through a looking glass darkly. This asymmetry puts the power in these corporation's hands to allow for manipulation psychological and of the wallet. Knowledge may be power but it seems to concentrate in the hands of a few tech giants. Unseen paranoid tech influence.
Not saying it's bad - among other things, it's extremely heavily researched - but it is a bit of a tirade. Hey, why say something in 100 pages when you could take 600 pages, right?
Big tech is at the root of surveillance capitalism and most people love it. Saved you reading 500 pages. But seriously, this book could have been half as long and it would have been more compelling. The author loves long, fanciful sentences that try to drive the severity of her perspectives but neglects conciseness as if she was paid by the word. I liked the book but couldn’t wait to get to the end.
Your phone and computer are listening to you, there's no denying it anymore.
As someone wearing a Fitbit that has signed up on Goodreads through Facebook, I had a deep appreciation for this book's unshakeable determination to create a dialogue around digital privacy. And from a woman that's studied personally under BF Skinner, of the infamous "Skinner Box"? Woof, it gets heavy in regards to behavioral economics.
Zuboff created an easily digestible book that examines the implications of the slippery slope that's been made real around data privacy and the ethics behind "who decides and who decides who decides" how and for what purpose we collect personal information. The one and only PRISM by the CIA basing its information collection off Google's data collection structure is hauntingly revealing, as is the fact that we're having one-sided and isolating conversations in the form of marketing "nudges" between ourselves and companies hell-bent on destroying our humanity until we become perfect capitalists. Next time I see an annoying commercial, I'll be sure to scream about how shitty that company is into my laptop's microphone and you should too.
I can't wait until I get hit by a self-driving car that calculates that some other Tesla driver is more worth saving or buy one of those hoodies that screw with facial recognition cameras. My only criticism is that Zuboff quotes Hannah Arendt so much she should've put her whole book in there.
Throw out your Yuval Noah Harari books, this and Christopher Lasch are so, so much better.
As someone wearing a Fitbit that has signed up on Goodreads through Facebook, I had a deep appreciation for this book's unshakeable determination to create a dialogue around digital privacy. And from a woman that's studied personally under BF Skinner, of the infamous "Skinner Box"? Woof, it gets heavy in regards to behavioral economics.
Zuboff created an easily digestible book that examines the implications of the slippery slope that's been made real around data privacy and the ethics behind "who decides and who decides who decides" how and for what purpose we collect personal information. The one and only PRISM by the CIA basing its information collection off Google's data collection structure is hauntingly revealing, as is the fact that we're having one-sided and isolating conversations in the form of marketing "nudges" between ourselves and companies hell-bent on destroying our humanity until we become perfect capitalists. Next time I see an annoying commercial, I'll be sure to scream about how shitty that company is into my laptop's microphone and you should too.
I can't wait until I get hit by a self-driving car that calculates that some other Tesla driver is more worth saving or buy one of those hoodies that screw with facial recognition cameras. My only criticism is that Zuboff quotes Hannah Arendt so much she should've put her whole book in there.
Throw out your Yuval Noah Harari books, this and Christopher Lasch are so, so much better.
An excellent loom at the technology, companies, and advocates for surveillance capitalism. Detailled and rich, it should stand as a warning to this and future generations much like Arendt did for hers. Perhaps a bit overly long and occasionally repetitive, it is nonetheless an important work.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
As other people have mentioned this book is too long for its own good. It’s actually two books in a trench coat masquerading as one
The research is impeccable and I can mostly follow her thesis, but I feel like she combines some points to the detriment of her whole argument.
Collecting data from people without their knowledge is bad.
Unilaterally deciding what is “good” and “bad” and nudging behavior towards that “good” is a huge issue.
Using that data to sell targeted ads is bad.
The technology itself isn’t.
The research itself isn’t.
Yes, using behavioral surplus for financial gain is bad, but a forever cookie makes sense as a technology.
Yes I don’t want google to read my emails when its mapping cars pass my house, but the technology to weed through emails to find the key words/logic in a batch of text is very good for other uses.
The chapter on the group sociology research was mind blowing. Full understanding of how we interact. That’s amazing to read.
She may believe that human behavior and experience is a unique unquantifiable something (I feel like she doesn’t fully commit on the concept of a soul), but the fact that it HAS been modeled and HAS been able to be quantified proves her wrong.
This is just the same old same old over human history: the tech discovery isn’t bad, the way it’s taken up for monetary/social gain is.
The research is impeccable and I can mostly follow her thesis, but I feel like she combines some points to the detriment of her whole argument.
Collecting data from people without their knowledge is bad.
Unilaterally deciding what is “good” and “bad” and nudging behavior towards that “good” is a huge issue.
Using that data to sell targeted ads is bad.
The technology itself isn’t.
The research itself isn’t.
Yes, using behavioral surplus for financial gain is bad, but a forever cookie makes sense as a technology.
Yes I don’t want google to read my emails when its mapping cars pass my house, but the technology to weed through emails to find the key words/logic in a batch of text is very good for other uses.
The chapter on the group sociology research was mind blowing. Full understanding of how we interact. That’s amazing to read.
She may believe that human behavior and experience is a unique unquantifiable something (I feel like she doesn’t fully commit on the concept of a soul), but the fact that it HAS been modeled and HAS been able to be quantified proves her wrong.
This is just the same old same old over human history: the tech discovery isn’t bad, the way it’s taken up for monetary/social gain is.
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Incredible book, but slow and repetitive.