Paul Matthews reviewed The Cyber Effect by Mary Aiken
Review of 'The Cyber Effect' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Some eye opening commentary on the effects of devices and the internet on young people, human relationships, sexuality etc. I felt the latter parts were not as strong as the earlier chapters, being a bit more rambling. I also felt that, while there is some good evidence- based futurism, elsewhere the extrapolation is based on extreme cases or examples. There have always been extreme personalities and behaviour, and she is right that this is magnified or more easily accessed on line, but we need to get some of these horrifying examples in context of how unusual they are. I feel that you could write a similar book with extreme positive examples (many have) and come out feeling a lot more optimistic! I agree though that more regulation is needed and that governments have had to much of a laissez faire approach to tech until recently. Also that human psychology is …
Some eye opening commentary on the effects of devices and the internet on young people, human relationships, sexuality etc. I felt the latter parts were not as strong as the earlier chapters, being a bit more rambling. I also felt that, while there is some good evidence- based futurism, elsewhere the extrapolation is based on extreme cases or examples. There have always been extreme personalities and behaviour, and she is right that this is magnified or more easily accessed on line, but we need to get some of these horrifying examples in context of how unusual they are. I feel that you could write a similar book with extreme positive examples (many have) and come out feeling a lot more optimistic! I agree though that more regulation is needed and that governments have had to much of a laissez faire approach to tech until recently. Also that human psychology is astute moment often exploited for profit instead of wellbeing and this balance needs to be corrected.