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3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
Thought this might be interesting popularization of surveillance studies but instead it’s a pseudo-intellectual attempt in the field that makes some gross generalizations with no citations in sight.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
WHEW! This tomb of a book packs a punch. Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff tells us about the negative implications that technological advancements such as drones and surveillance has led to an invasion of our privacy and discriminatory practices. Drawing on scholarly research, Zuboff gives us an in depth exploration into this new age way of data colonialism and technofuedalism. Highly highly HIGHLLYYYY RECOMMEND! I know I say that about a lot of books, but given the recent upbringing of Artificial Intelligence, this book is especially pertinent.
Ughh I think I have to give up on this one because the writing style is meandering and pretentious and clogged with excessive explanations and examples and attempts at being poetic. I felt like I got a lot out of the first half, but it feels like a slog at this point to finish it
the information is excellent. my ability to situate surveillance and instrumentarian power in the larger history of capitalism has improved drastically because of this book. i really appreciate the labor shoshana has done in studying this history and writing this detailed, well organized book.
the theory and analysis of capitalism more broadly is where she often lost me. discussed a bit of indigenous history but never meaningfully engaged with capitalism’s roots in slavery. don’t get why. the book reads as “capitalism is okay, surveillance capitalism is not” in some places.
glad i had just read glitchfeminisn before going into this book! i think my takeaways from that book complemented my reading of this book incredibly well. of course, prior readings also help. will never stop praising ruha benjamin.
the theory and analysis of capitalism more broadly is where she often lost me. discussed a bit of indigenous history but never meaningfully engaged with capitalism’s roots in slavery. don’t get why. the book reads as “capitalism is okay, surveillance capitalism is not” in some places.
glad i had just read glitchfeminisn before going into this book! i think my takeaways from that book complemented my reading of this book incredibly well. of course, prior readings also help. will never stop praising ruha benjamin.
this book was too long it pissed me off. too repetitive, gets into tangents that obfuscates her main arguments, doesnt present any solutions other than "resist!" but HOWWW
Library loan expired and I wasn't sufficiently interested to keep going with the audio book version. Maybe it's because these ideas have become a lot more mainstream since the book has come out?
The research in the book seems interesting but the radically skewed wording is very difficult to ignore. The author clearly pushes her own agenda alongside the research she’s trying to present
informative
medium-paced
NYT Notable Books 2019: 17/100
While nothing in this book totally shocked me, it was nice to have various suspicions confirmed (your phone is listening to you and giving you ads accordingly, it's not a coincidence when you walk into a mall and start getting ads for stores there, etc.). Even in the five years since this book was written, even more has changed and spiraled further out of control (and nothing has really improved). Now women are scared to use period tracking apps in case what they track there can be used against them in the future. So that's ... something...
Anyway, this book started off really strong, but it felt like it waned towards the end. The second half of the book felt a lot less focused than the first part and was suddenly covering a lot more ground, to the point I was sometimes confused about how something was going to tie back to Zuboff's main ideas. Overall though, this was a solid and honestly pretty freaky read. It's dense, but worth the read, particularly as an audiobook.
While nothing in this book totally shocked me, it was nice to have various suspicions confirmed (your phone is listening to you and giving you ads accordingly, it's not a coincidence when you walk into a mall and start getting ads for stores there, etc.). Even in the five years since this book was written, even more has changed and spiraled further out of control (and nothing has really improved). Now women are scared to use period tracking apps in case what they track there can be used against them in the future. So that's ... something...
Anyway, this book started off really strong, but it felt like it waned towards the end. The second half of the book felt a lot less focused than the first part and was suddenly covering a lot more ground, to the point I was sometimes confused about how something was going to tie back to Zuboff's main ideas. Overall though, this was a solid and honestly pretty freaky read. It's dense, but worth the read, particularly as an audiobook.
Just be sure how much you want to know about this subject before embarking on this monster. Made me regret my google home assistant a little and glad I don’t have a Facebook account. Will we all end up puppets of Silicon Valley? I like to think not.
Stunning read. I feel like I didn't understand anything about Google or Facebook before reading this book. Fascinating connections between tech, human nature, and freedom.