The website of James Harkin, author of Niche, Cyburbia and Big Ideas
Death to the Dictator!: Witnessing Iran’s Election and the Crippling of the Islamic Republic by Afsaneh Moqadam Bodley Head, 134 pp, £10.99, May 2010, ISBN 978 1 84792 146 8 The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov Allen Lane, 408 pp, £14.99, January 2011, … Continue reading
On December 20 last year, a Boeing 737 preparing for take-off in Colorado skidded off the runway, tumbled into a ravine and injured 38 people. Just moments after the accident, while his fellow passengers sat reflecting on their good fortune … Continue reading
A smart political review of the book from the Sunday Times in South Africa. The author concludes that the idea of the net currently tends to obscure the sources of power. I’d agree wholeheartedly. As I argue at the end … Continue reading
On the subject of Dunblane and the Sunday Express, the editor of the Scottish Sunday Express Derek Lambie has just emailed me to request an interesting clarification: “Having read your Comment piece in the Guardian, I have to point out … Continue reading
The novelist and critic Michael Pye writes an interesting review of the book here. In a generally sympathetic article, he argues that I pay too little attention to how the owners of places like Twitter and Facebook are manipulating us … Continue reading
A good article in The Economist this week confirming my argument in the book that our networks are wholly different from our friends. While we have an average of 120 friends on Facebook, according to Facebook’s in-house sociologist Cameron Marlow, … Continue reading
Does Facebook rot our brains, or just tabloid headlines? Earlier this week, the director of the Royal Institution Susan Greenfield was quoted as saying that social networking sites and other communication gizmos might “infantilise our brains.” Maybe, but only if … Continue reading