Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better by Clive Thompson

I feel like our culture is always so focused on the negatives of our rapidly evolving technology culture that we overlook the positives. Clive Thompson’s book is about those positives. Thompson argues that we are continually learning to harness new technologies to enhance our thought process rather than degrade them. He also points out that all the fears surrounding the digital age were once the same anxieties that came with all innovations including the printing press, telephone, radio and television and yet, we are not dumber or culturally bereft because of them. Blogging and status updates are allowing us to write more and with global audiences in mind; Google has given us an enormous transactive memory that allows us to focus on our passions and the bigger picture; the connectedness of the Internet allows for collective problem-solving. This book is an insightful and informative view of how technology is changing us for the better.