
Superbloom
How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jonathan Todd Ross
-
By:
-
Nicholas Carr
About this listen
From the author of The Shallows, a bracing exploration of how social media has warped our sense of self and society.
From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Superbloom tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.
A celebrated commentator on the human consequences of technology, Nicholas Carr reorients the conversation around modern communication, challenging some of our most cherished beliefs about self-expression, free speech, and media democratization. He reveals how messaging apps strip nuance from conversation, how “digital crowding” erodes empathy and triggers aggression, how online political debates narrow our minds and distort our perceptions, and how advances in AI are further blurring the already hazy line between fantasy and reality. Even as Carr shows how tech companies and their tools of connection have failed us, he forces us to confront inconvenient truths about our own nature. The human psyche, it turns out, is profoundly ill-suited to the “superbloom” of information that technology has unleashed.
With rich psychological insights and vivid examples drawn from history and science, Superbloom provides both a panoramic view of how media shapes society and an intimate examination of the fate of the self in a time of radical dislocation. It may be too late to change the system, Carr counsels, but it’s not too late to change ourselves.
©2025 Nicholas Carr (P)2025 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Extinction of Experience
- Being Human in a Disembodied World
- By: Christine Rosen
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control.
-
-
Terrible robotic narration
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-24
By: Christine Rosen
-
The Sirens' Call
- How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
- By: Chris Hayes
- Narrated by: Chris Hayes
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.”
-
-
Thoughtful and captivating
- By Nancy on 02-02-25
By: Chris Hayes
-
Public Opinion
- By: Walter Lippmann
- Narrated by: John Clickman
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion (1922) argues humans can't fully grasp complex issues. We rely on simplified ideas (stereotypes) and media portrayals ("pseudo-environments") to form opinions.
-
-
Lippmann is an impressive social scientist.
- By Anonymous User on 12-29-24
By: Walter Lippmann
-
Amusing Ourselves to Death
- Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
- By: Neil Postman
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think. As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television.
-
-
Excellent Content Read at Warp Speed
- By chaoticmuse on 03-17-11
By: Neil Postman
-
Technopoly
- The Surrender of Culture to Technology
- By: Neil Postman
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, Postman chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it. According to Postman, technology is rapidly gaining sovereignty over social institutions and national life to become self-justifying, self-perpetuating, and omnipresent. He warns that this will have radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, religion, family, education, and more.
-
-
Error in recording
- By D. Cassidy on 04-30-15
By: Neil Postman
-
The Shallows
- What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the internet is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
-
-
It is not consistant, so it is frustrating.
- By Adam Shields on 08-03-12
By: Nicholas Carr
-
The Extinction of Experience
- Being Human in a Disembodied World
- By: Christine Rosen
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control.
-
-
Terrible robotic narration
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-24
By: Christine Rosen
-
The Sirens' Call
- How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
- By: Chris Hayes
- Narrated by: Chris Hayes
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.”
-
-
Thoughtful and captivating
- By Nancy on 02-02-25
By: Chris Hayes
-
Public Opinion
- By: Walter Lippmann
- Narrated by: John Clickman
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion (1922) argues humans can't fully grasp complex issues. We rely on simplified ideas (stereotypes) and media portrayals ("pseudo-environments") to form opinions.
-
-
Lippmann is an impressive social scientist.
- By Anonymous User on 12-29-24
By: Walter Lippmann
-
Amusing Ourselves to Death
- Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
- By: Neil Postman
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think. As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television.
-
-
Excellent Content Read at Warp Speed
- By chaoticmuse on 03-17-11
By: Neil Postman
-
Technopoly
- The Surrender of Culture to Technology
- By: Neil Postman
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, Postman chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it. According to Postman, technology is rapidly gaining sovereignty over social institutions and national life to become self-justifying, self-perpetuating, and omnipresent. He warns that this will have radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, religion, family, education, and more.
-
-
Error in recording
- By D. Cassidy on 04-30-15
By: Neil Postman
-
The Shallows
- What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the internet is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
-
-
It is not consistant, so it is frustrating.
- By Adam Shields on 08-03-12
By: Nicholas Carr
-
Abundance
- By: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all.
-
-
Advice to the Democratic Party from Klein & Thompson
- By Betsy Fowler on 03-31-25
By: Ezra Klein, and others
-
Open Socrates
- The Case for a Philosophical Life
- By: Agnes Callard
- Narrated by: Agnes Callard
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Socrates has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for his humility, but readers often find him arrogant and condescending. We parrot his claim that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” yet take no steps to live examined ones. In Open Socrates, acclaimed philosopher Agnes Callard recovers the radical move at the center of Socrates’ thought, and shows why it is still the way to a good life.
-
-
An opposite of hell
- By Anonymous User on 04-17-25
By: Agnes Callard
-
The AI Mirror
- How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking
- By: Shannon Vallor
- Narrated by: Kim Niemi
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shannon Vallor makes a wide-ranging, prophetic, and philosophical case for what AI could be: a way to reclaim our human potential for moral and intellectual growth, rather than lose ourselves in mirrors of the past. Rejecting prophecies of doom, she encourages us to pursue technology that helps us recover our sense of the possible, and with it the confidence and courage to repair a broken world. Vallor calls us to rethink what AI is and can be, and what we want to be with it.
-
-
Timely But Incomplete
- By Amazon Customer on 12-30-24
By: Shannon Vallor
-
The Quiet Damage
- QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family
- By: Jesselyn Cook
- Narrated by: Jesselyn Cook
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Quiet Damage, celebrated reporter Jesselyn Cook unfolds the heartbreaking stories of five representative families from couples young and old to rural white parents to urban Black siblings, to show how QAnon shattered bonds once believed unbreakable. Cook paints a portrait of American suffering, of the vulnerabilities that have left people susceptible to outrageous theories promising order and control in a world where both are increasingly in short supply.
-
-
Engaging story telling
- By Joshua M. Kuo on 09-30-24
By: Jesselyn Cook
-
Somewhere Toward Freedom
- By: Bennett Parten
- Narrated by: Jonathan Beville
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Historian Bennett Parten provides a groundbreaking account of Sherman’s March to the Sea—the critical Civil War campaign that destroyed the Confederacy—told for the first time from the perspective of the tens of thousands of enslaved people who fled to the Union lines and transformed Sherman’s march into the biggest liberation event in American history.
-
-
Compelling history, well told!
- By Nina Lovel on 02-26-25
By: Bennett Parten
-
The Art of Uncertainty
- How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck
- By: David Spiegelhalter
- Narrated by: David Spiegelhalter
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned statistician David Spiegelhalter shows how we can become better at dealing with what we don't know to make smarter choices in a world so full of puzzling variables. In lucid, lively prose, Spiegelhalter guides us through the principles of probability, illustrating how they can help us think more analytically about everything from medical advice to sports to climate change forecasts.
-
-
Terrific
- By Roger March on 04-01-25
-
Red Scare
- Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America
- By: Clay Risen
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An urgent, accessible, and important history, Red Scare reveals an all-too-familiar pattern of illiberal conspiracy-mongering and political and cultural backlash that speaks directly to the antagonism and divisiveness of our contemporary moment. Drawing upon newly declassified documents, journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies.
-
-
Very disappointing narrator
- By DB on 04-19-25
By: Clay Risen
-
Mindmasters (Anna Caputo version)
- The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior
- By: Sandra Matz
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz reveals in fascinating detail how big data offers insights into the most intimate aspects of our psyches and how these insights empower an external influence over the choices we make. This can be creepy, manipulative, and downright harmful, with scandals like that of British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica being merely the tip of the iceberg.
-
-
An Important book!! Very well written!! Empowering!
- By onili on 02-03-25
By: Sandra Matz
-
Hit Makers
- The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction
- By: Derek Thompson
- Narrated by: Derek Thompson
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing "goes viral". If you think a popular movie, song, or app came out of nowhere to become a word-of-mouth success in today's crowded media environment, you're missing the real story. Each blockbuster has a secret history - of power, influence, dark broadcasters, and passionate cults that turn some new products into cultural phenomena. In his groundbreaking investigation, Atlantic senior editor Derek Thompson uncovers the hidden psychology of why we like what we like.
-
-
Starts of saying “The Tipping Point” book was wrong but then...
- By Venusian Incognito on 03-25-18
By: Derek Thompson
-
Superagency
- What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future
- By: Reid Hoffman, Greg Beato
- Narrated by: Scott Wallace
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Superagency offers a roadmap for using AI inclusively and adaptively to improve our lives and create positive change. While acknowledging challenges like disinformation and potential job changes, the book focuses on AI’s immense potential to increase individual agency and create better outcomes for society as a whole. Imagine AI tutors personalizing education for each child, researchers rapidly discovering cures for diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer, and AI advisors empowering people to navigate complex systems and achieve their goals.
-
-
Reid & Greg See a positive future for AI & Humans
- By T. Gallina on 04-10-25
By: Reid Hoffman, and others
-
The Upswing
- How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
- By: Robert D. Putnam, Shaylyn Romney Garrett - contributor
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism — Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today.
-
-
For Progressives only. Won't make sense otherwise
- By Dennis G. on 12-19-20
By: Robert D. Putnam, and others
-
The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits
- By: Joe Rigney
- Narrated by: Joe Rigney
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When you reject the sin of empathy, you reject the manipulation of the media, the manipulation of family and friends, and most importantly, the manipulation of your own heart.
-
-
Clarity
- By R. S. BONNER on 05-27-25
By: Joe Rigney
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Glass Cage
- Automation and Us
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Glass Cage, bestselling author Nicholas Carr digs behind the headlines about factory robots and self-driving cars, wearable computers and digitized medicine, as he explores the hidden costs of granting software dominion over our work and our leisure. Even as they bring ease to our lives, these programs are stealing something essential from us.
-
-
A MODERN LUDDITE
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 01-17-15
By: Nicholas Carr
-
The Shallows
- What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the internet is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
-
-
It is not consistant, so it is frustrating.
- By Adam Shields on 08-03-12
By: Nicholas Carr
-
Utopia Is Creepy
- And Other Provocations
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With a razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley's unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade's worth of posts from his blog, Rough Type, as well as his seminal essays, Utopia Is Creepy offers an alternative history of the digital age, chronicling its roller-coaster crazes and crashes, its blind triumphs, and its unintended consequences.
By: Nicholas Carr
-
The Extinction of Experience
- Being Human in a Disembodied World
- By: Christine Rosen
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control.
-
-
Terrible robotic narration
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-24
By: Christine Rosen
-
Mindmasters (Anna Caputo version)
- The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior
- By: Sandra Matz
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz reveals in fascinating detail how big data offers insights into the most intimate aspects of our psyches and how these insights empower an external influence over the choices we make. This can be creepy, manipulative, and downright harmful, with scandals like that of British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica being merely the tip of the iceberg.
-
-
An Important book!! Very well written!! Empowering!
- By onili on 02-03-25
By: Sandra Matz
-
The Sirens' Call
- How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
- By: Chris Hayes
- Narrated by: Chris Hayes
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.”
-
-
Thoughtful and captivating
- By Nancy on 02-02-25
By: Chris Hayes
-
The Glass Cage
- Automation and Us
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Glass Cage, bestselling author Nicholas Carr digs behind the headlines about factory robots and self-driving cars, wearable computers and digitized medicine, as he explores the hidden costs of granting software dominion over our work and our leisure. Even as they bring ease to our lives, these programs are stealing something essential from us.
-
-
A MODERN LUDDITE
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 01-17-15
By: Nicholas Carr
-
The Shallows
- What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the internet is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
-
-
It is not consistant, so it is frustrating.
- By Adam Shields on 08-03-12
By: Nicholas Carr
-
Utopia Is Creepy
- And Other Provocations
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With a razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley's unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade's worth of posts from his blog, Rough Type, as well as his seminal essays, Utopia Is Creepy offers an alternative history of the digital age, chronicling its roller-coaster crazes and crashes, its blind triumphs, and its unintended consequences.
By: Nicholas Carr
-
The Extinction of Experience
- Being Human in a Disembodied World
- By: Christine Rosen
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control.
-
-
Terrible robotic narration
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-24
By: Christine Rosen
-
Mindmasters (Anna Caputo version)
- The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior
- By: Sandra Matz
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz reveals in fascinating detail how big data offers insights into the most intimate aspects of our psyches and how these insights empower an external influence over the choices we make. This can be creepy, manipulative, and downright harmful, with scandals like that of British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica being merely the tip of the iceberg.
-
-
An Important book!! Very well written!! Empowering!
- By onili on 02-03-25
By: Sandra Matz
-
The Sirens' Call
- How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
- By: Chris Hayes
- Narrated by: Chris Hayes
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.”
-
-
Thoughtful and captivating
- By Nancy on 02-02-25
By: Chris Hayes
-
The Attention Merchants
- The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
- By: Tim Wu
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of advertising enticements, branding efforts, sponsored social media, commercials, and other efforts to harvest our attention. Over the last century, few times or spaces have remained uncultivated by the "attention merchants", contributing to the distracted, unfocused tenor of our times. Tim Wu argues that this is not simply the byproduct of recent inventions, but the end result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention.
-
-
It's Been Sold
- By Mr. Ess on 10-24-16
By: Tim Wu
-
Technopoly
- The Surrender of Culture to Technology
- By: Neil Postman
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, Postman chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it. According to Postman, technology is rapidly gaining sovereignty over social institutions and national life to become self-justifying, self-perpetuating, and omnipresent. He warns that this will have radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, religion, family, education, and more.
-
-
Error in recording
- By D. Cassidy on 04-30-15
By: Neil Postman
-
Outrage Machine
- How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy—and What We Can Do About It
- By: Tobias Rose-Stockwell
- Narrated by: Justin Price, Tobias Rose-Stockwell, Bolton Marsh
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the last two decades, there has been an inescapable rise of anger and aggression across our planet. Hate speech has become increasingly prevalent online, Western governments are turning towards authoritarianism and populism, and extremist groups are rising across both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum. Every day, it seems, we're hearing more angry voices and fearful opinions, we're seeing more threats and frightening news, and we're reacting faster and less rationally.
-
-
Annoying analogous stories
- By Lindsay on 07-06-24
-
Employment Is Dead
- How Disruptive Technologies Are Revolutionizing the Way We Work
- By: Deborah Perry Piscione, Josh Drean
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Business is on the cusp of an inevitable and profound transformation. The tools of tomorrow will amplify human potential, from collaborating in virtual spaces through digital avatars, to managing transactions transparently on the blockchain. Those who embrace these technologies—and the manner in which people want to work—will unleash unprecedented levels of productivity and innovation. Conversely, those who remain tethered to outdated work patterns risk losing out on the best talent, and even becoming obsolete.
-
-
AI is Rapidly Changing Today’s Workforce
- By Hayley on 02-18-25
By: Deborah Perry Piscione, and others
-
Cool
- How Air Conditioning Changed Everything
- By: Salvatore Basile
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The air conditioner is often hailed as one of the modern world's greatest inventions—yet nearly as often blamed for global disaster. It has changed everything from architecture to people's food habits; saved countless lives, and caused countless deaths. First appearing in 1902, when Willis Carrier, an engineer barely out of college, developed the "Apparatus for Treating Air," everyone assumed it would instantly change the world. But the story of air conditioning and its rise to ubiquity is far from simple.
By: Salvatore Basile
-
Psychopolitics
- Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power
- By: Byung-Chul Han
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Byung-Chul Han, a star of German philosophy, continues his passionate critique of neoliberalism, trenchantly describing a regime of technological domination that, in contrast to Foucault’s biopower, has discovered the productive force of the psyche.
-
-
Jargon and ambiguity are not honest intellectualism
- By carsonwelker on 10-18-24
By: Byung-Chul Han
-
Public Opinion
- By: Walter Lippmann
- Narrated by: John Clickman
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion (1922) argues humans can't fully grasp complex issues. We rely on simplified ideas (stereotypes) and media portrayals ("pseudo-environments") to form opinions.
-
-
Lippmann is an impressive social scientist.
- By Anonymous User on 12-29-24
By: Walter Lippmann
-
Against Platforms
- Surviving Digital Utopia (Activist Citizens Library)
- By: Mike Pepi
- Narrated by: Tim Andres Pabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the turn of the millennium, digital technologies seemed to have immense promise for transforming our society. With these powerful new tools, the thinking went, we would be free to live our best lives, connected to our communities in ways full of infinite potential. A quarter of a century on, this form of utopianism seems like a cruel mirage. So what happened? In Against Platforms, technologist and creator Mike Pepi lays out an explanation of what went wrong—and a manifesto for putting it right.
-
-
Relevant, clear, and accessible
- By books&ennui on 04-09-25
By: Mike Pepi
-
Countdown
- The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons
- By: Sarah Scoles
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Countdown, science journalist Sarah Scoles uncovers a different atomic reality: the nuclear age's present. Drawing from years of on-the-ground reporting at the nation's nuclear weapons labs, Scoles interrogates the idea that having nuclear weapons keeps us safe, deterring attacks and preventing radioactive warfare. She deftly assesses the existing nuclear apparatus in the United States, taking listeners beyond the news headlines and policy-speak to reveal the state of nuclear-weapons technology.
-
-
It was just not interesting.
- By Anonymous User on 02-02-25
By: Sarah Scoles
-
The Promise and Peril of CRISPR
- By: Neal Baer
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scientists and genetic engineers are becoming increasingly adept at editing the human genome. How far can—and should—they go in editing future generations? In The Promise and Peril of CRISPR, editor Neal Baer brings together a timely collection of essays by influential bioethicists, philosophers, and geneticists to explore the moral, ethical, and policy challenges posed by CRISPR technology.
-
-
Complex issues of science & ethics well explained!
- By OpenTheBooks&Listen on 03-03-25
By: Neal Baer
-
Random Acts of Automation
- How to Fight Back When Automation Threatens Your Work, Your Life, and Everything You Do
- By: Craig LeClair
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Random Acts of Automation dives deep into the hidden consequences of our rapid automation, examining the forces that will reshape the current workforce. This book focuses on real people—fast-food workers, warehouse staff, customer service agents, even lawyers and tech professionals—all facing the impact of automation. In its chapters, you will find practical solutions to your workplace concerns about AI. This isn't just about understanding your current job; it's about seeing where automation will take you and how you can thrive.
By: Craig LeClair
-
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
- The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
- By: Shoshana Zuboff
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 24 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is neither a hand-wringing narrative of danger and decline nor a digital fairy tale. Rather, it offers a deeply reasoned and evocative examination of the contests over the next chapter of capitalism that will decide the meaning of information civilization in the 21st century. The stark issue at hand is whether we will be the masters of information and machines or its slaves.
-
-
Book Editors failed to trim the word count
- By Todd B on 07-14-19
By: Shoshana Zuboff
Great book!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Humanity is really doomed, eh?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Absolutely Necessary.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.