We live in a world inconceivable just decades ago: a domain of backlit screens, instantaneous information, and lively experiences that can outcompete dreary truth. Our brave new technologies use unbelievable chances for work and play. At what cost? Now renowned neuroscientist Susan Greenfield– known in the United Kingdom for challenging established traditional views– brings together a range of scientific studies, news events, and cultural criticism to produce an incisive picture of “the worldwide now.” Challenging the presumption that our technologies are harmless tools, Greenfield explores whether constant exposure to social media sites, search engines, and videogames can rewiring our brains, and whether the minds of people born before and after the advent of the Internet differ. Worrying the impact on Digital Natives– those who’ve never ever known a world without the Internet– Greenfield exposes how neuronal networking might be affected by extraordinary barrages of audiovisual stimuli, how gaming can shape a chemical landscape in the brain similar to that in betting addicts, how surfing the Net dangers placing a premium on information instead of on deep knowledge and understanding, and how extreme use of social networking sites limits the maturation of compassion and identity. Mind Change also dives into the prospective advantages of our digital way of life. Sifting through the cocktail of not only hazard but chance these innovations afford, Greenfield checks out how gaming boosts vision and motor control, how touch tablets help students with developmental disabilities, and how political “clicktivism” foments favorable modification. In a world where adults invest 10 hours a day online, and where tablets are the typical means by which kids discover and play, Mind Change exposes as never prior to the complex physiological, social, and cultural implications of residing in the digital age. A book that will be to the Web what An Inconvenient Reality was to global warming, Mind Change is provocative, worrying, and a call to action to ensure a future in which technology promotes– not irritates– deep thinking, creativity, and real satisfaction. Applaud for Mind Change “Greenfield’s application of the inequality between human and maker to the brain presents a crucial variation on this prevalent view of innovation … She has an unusual skill for discussing science in accessible prose.”– The Washington Post “Greenfield’s focus is on bringing to light the ramifications of Internet-induced ‘mind modification’– as comparably multifaceted as the concern of environment modification, she argues, and simply as essential.”– Chicago Tribune “Mind Change is exceptionally well organized and hits the ideal balance between academic and intriguing.”– Booklist “[A] tough, promoting point of view from a notified neuroscientist on a complex, fast-moving, extremely consequential field.”– Kirkus Reviews “[Greenfield] is not just an interesting communicator but a thoughtful, accountable scientist, and the arguments she makes are well-supported and persuasive.”– Mail on Sunday “Greenfield’s admirable objective to prove an empirical basis for discussion is … an important one.”– Financial Times “An essential presentation of an uneasy minority position.”– Jaron Lanier, Nature From the Hardbound edition.
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