Lost in Cyburbia: How Life on the Net Has Created a Life of Its Own [Hardcover]

“A fine book…. Harkin’s indictment of how we have come to misuse the Internet is both persuasive and deeply disturbing…. You need to start reading books again. My advice is that you start with James Harkin’s Lost in Cyburbia.”
— National Post

“[A]n entertaining, sceptically intelligent analysis of the history of the Internet revolution that steps back from the breathless boosterism of the dotcom decade to examine the novel, often unintended consequences of a network culture that is now a living reality, rather than the stuff of techno-prophecy.”
— Art Review

“Lost in Cyburbia is just what the doctor ordered for a world in thrall to the online revolution: a bracing, sharp-eyed examination of how technology and the ideas that drive it are reshaping every corner of our culture. A fresh, sane and fascinating look at how we are changing — for good and ill — in the age of the net.”
— Carl Honoré, author of In Praise of Slow and Under Pressure

“Entertaining, engaging and well-argued…. Cyburbia is just the sort of corrective to the blind techno-optimism of the networked world that we need if we’re to make sensible choices about our digital tomorrows.”
— Bill Thompson, BBC Focus Magazine

“Lively and enjoyable.”
— Financial Times

“Fascinating and slightly disturbing.”
— Waterstone’s Books Quarterly

“[Harkin’s] roll call of the eccentric and little-known pioneers of the computer revolution is fascinating.”
— The Scotsman

“Harkin is a fine guide to the alleys and dark spaces of Cyburbia.”
— The Daily Telegraph

“Cyburbia is a persuasive book, and a brave step in thinking about the mess we may have all got ourselves into.”
— The Daily Telegraph

“James Harkin constructs the notion of a place called ‘Cyburbia’, akin to 1950s Suburbia where conformism abounds. He writes about it as a place where people go, sometimes to search out information, other times to browse material in a hyperactive manner, or other times to waste time. With his exploration of Cyburbia, Harkin reveals the often over-looked history of this place and its cultural and social evolution…. [He] do[es] a nice job of revealing something more about our society and about the ways we’re changing our values — for better or for worse…. Harkin writes convincingly that it was out of a conviction of our common humanity that the internet’s social networking capacity grew.”
— Ryerson Free Press

“Harkin is no Luddite, and his discussion of these issues is as sophisticated as it gets…. [M]any of Harkin’s analyses are fascinating, such as what he calls cyber-realism — non-linear storytelling that exploits cybernetics principles, exemplified by the movie 21 Grams…. For sure, we all need to manage how we manage our time and make sure we have balance in our lives, cherishing face-to-face engagement with those for whom we truly care. And it’s good for all of us to reflect on how to design our lives to ensure that the digital experience is enriching. As such the book is a useful reminder. If you buy it, try switching off Twitter and Facebook and read it from the beginning to the end, as I did. It’s a good narrative.”
— Don Tapscott, The Globe and Mail

The early twentieth century saw the slow but steady exodus of the population from inner cities to the suburbs. We are currently witnessing a similar transformation as our new century establishes itself, but in an entirely different realm. As new technologies proliferate — personal computers, the communication gadgetry of mobile devices and access to the internet — our culture is participating in a mass electronic migration. James Harkin christens this destination to “Cyburbia” — the ether of “online,” where we spend so much of our lives.

Once upon a time there were no text messaging, no e-mail and no social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo, Twitter and MySpace. The introduction of these new forums for communication has radically transformed the way that we live — and we can only guess what will come next. Innovative and extremely timely, Lost in Cyburbia describes the architecture of our digital life, how it has developed over the past seventy years and how it will evolve in the future. The narrative recounts how the theories of Norbert Weiner (the inventor of cybernetics) and Marshall McLuhan inspired the counterculture radicals in the sixties and seventies, and traces how their pioneering idealistic and theoretical work laid the groundwork for a system whose central idea is bringing about direct communication between peers, outside the reach of authority.

Harkin explores what it means to be in the loop — and our obsession with instant access to information and how it is shared over networks — and considers what has been lost and what has been gained. Are we more connected than ever before or more isolated? Have our thinking processes been forever altered? Is the democratic nature of the net slowly being eroded by corporate interests? Or, as once hoped, will the net enable the awakening of a new kind of global consciousness?