Customer Reviews

Being Digital

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

As an Information Science minor this book has been mentioned many times and I finally had a chance to read it. Even though it is noe 8 years old it still is very useful, his theory of the change from atoms to bits is revolutionary and with it he has named what has been going on: the move to a more and more digital world, whether we like it or not. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the new digital world.

There is however one major flaw in this book, although he briefly mentions it in the epilogue. What are the broader societal complications? Nergroponte makes it look like our lives will be perfect and easier. I agree in part, but there are some things to be critical of.

Many people in the media seem to be happy with what I would call customized news; you only get the news you want. But what do we want? Doesn't news we hadn't thought of before increase our knowlegde of the world as well? If we only want to read left or rightwing editorials, will we ever understand what the other side thinks? Won't we be molded into a certain way of thinking?

There is a funny part about the digitial sister in law, a computer that knows what you like and can therefore tell you which movie you should see. What about moods? surprises? Won't digital machines tell us what to like this way?

Read it however, even though you might not like it, it's a classic, if only because of its influence.

I read this book a few years ago - correction - I read it about half way through and got so disgusted by its triviality of content and terrible prose that I flung it back into my bookcase.
I largely agree with "A reader from Lakewood, CO United States" and can't comprehend why anyone could have a positive opinion about this book.
The book has some significance, be it a very negative one, viz. that its bad, cobbled together content, by, mind you, the man in charge of the MIT Media Lab, symbolizes the typical ignorance of many scientists regarding the historical, socio-cultural context in which new technology should be viewed.
I would recommend a crash course in Lewis Mumford's great ideas, as discussed in Technics and Civilization and the Myth of the Machine, to all students embarking on high-tech research and development.

I've read this book about 3 years late! Yet its arguments are as exciting and relevant as they were 3 years ago. This book is NOT really about fancy visions of the future. Rather it is a hard hitting look at the suboptimal thinking and quick-fix utilization of todays technologies; instead of a truly revolutionary approach that is needed.
A simple example is the authors lucid example of a doctor from the 19th Century walking into todays hospitals and being whammed by the advances. But the same cannot be said for a teacher of the 19th century walking into todays classrooms... except for the syllabus. Similar examples abound in the fact that technologies of devices are changing only incrementally to accomodate the bandwidth revolution, but the change needed is a quantum leap, which we are not doing. The author does portray various visions of the future where the full effects of technology would be used, and is clear in pointing out that these are not idle impractical fantasies.
Quite a very good book, and for those looking for a far more cohesive futuristic book bordering on Sci-Fi, a book well worth reading is "Visions" by Michio Kaku.

I have to say that this book could be very interesting if we were in 1995 or 1996. But from the modern perspective, this book is too simplified and optimistic. I can't deny that some anticipations in this book may come true in the future, but obviously, not now, in 2002.

I like this book but must take it with a grain of salt. It was joining the dot.com bubble so to speak although I had known of the author shortly before the 1990's. I like that my girl friend enjoying listening to the audio book verison. She isn't much of a cyberpsace person but she and I both found the story to be positive and slightly uplifting. Not very difficult to read too in the hard copy and it has an attractive cover.

The book was given to my wife years ago but she couldn't get past the first chapter because of the ridiculously simplistic writing style (she has higher standards than me). I ran out of books to read and so picked it off our shelf. Being an engineer I figured "Being Digital" is a book I should read. At least I've read it now, and so I can rant with some authority. It has some interesting ideas, but unless you are completely new to the internet and information technology, you've heard them stated better elsewhere. There are many very ridiculous statements, like "... I really believe x ...". Where x is a statement like "in 10 years more people will be spend more of their time on the internet than they spend watching TV." The guy has an opinion, great, but he makes no attempt to justify half of his opinions. Particularly frustrating reading it in 2002, knowing it was published in 1995, is that these predictions will not come true. Certainly many people are spend time on the net (that's what I'm doing right now), but the net is still far from displacing TV as the major media delivery mode in the US. I'd expect such dribble from a net weenie writing on slashdot or usenet, but it is not what you should get from a published book from a supposed expert at a supposedly prestigious university like MIT. The reader might want to know that I'm a professor at a small university and have a thing against arrogance from the big major research universities... but I am right :) Some of the ideas expressed in the book will eventually come true. Negroponte's major failing is that he makes absolutely no allowance for economic or social realities. Re-tooling can happen only so fast, people can allow for the uncertainties of change for only so long, and investors can only wait a few years before they want to see profit. The .com bust of the last years was (is?) basically caused by these realities. I'm sorry, but I can't think of book to recommend. If you've come to this page and are reading this review, then you must be interested in learning something about the future of computing and information technology. Go find a book published after 2001 is the only advice I can give you. Well, one other piece of advice: you might want to avoid Negroponte in general.

this book may be a few years old now...but...it still holds value for the time and bucks required to ingest this digest. negroponte is a personal hero...a person with a clue of what is coming...the nature of technology...and the mind of a culturally creative. i read this book when it came out...and just revisited it. it is a good read to give someone that might be a technophobe or in denial...it is accessible to the digitally challenged and provides a good carrot to dangle before their nose to encourage them to get engaged.

in a digitized world you need to get onto the streaming media...those 0's and 1's that are shaping everything around us. if you are interested in negroponte's playground...you might add stewart brands book on The Media Lab as a trailer to this one...then you will want to go to MIT and play with the future for yourself

This is one of those rare books that combines easy, enjoable reading with thought-provoking authorship. Even though this book is over 6 years old, the author's theories and predictions still hold true and give you new persective on the digital world and the future of information. A true classic!

Or should I say "Negroponte rules!"

For those who don't know who he is, we're talking about the man who has spearheaded the efforts to make out of MIT's Media Lab one of the state-of-the-art technology workshops of the world. What those guys are working there is what you and I might own or work with (as a gadget, for instance) in a few years, depending on your wlak of life. These guys are light-years ahead of us. And Negroponte is even ahead of them!

If you were a follower of Negroponte's last-page articles in Wired magazine for several years, you might not find the book all that new, but even then, you will have to acknowledge that he has a unique and very intuitive way to explain digital technology to people who are not tech savvy. He reminds me at times of Nobel-prize winner Richard Feynman in that sense.

Anyway... Think of this book, whether you are a techie or not, as a statement written five years ago about what's to come. Some of the things he refers to in the book have already occurred, which makes it even more exciting: it means that he's right, and those things that have yet to come will definitely be part of our lives sooner that we can maybe imagine.

Buy it and you will devour it in a day, I predict!

I'm fairly certain that the changes Negroponte envisioned haven't happened as quickly as he imagined that they would. The ability to view video-on-demand got bogged down in a nightmare of copyright issues and bandwidth problems and atoms are still unfortunately controlling the way that we are able to experience bits.

Despite the fact that much of it is dated, this book is still useful on two levels. It's a good book to make clients (particularly media clients) understand the impact of the difference between the analogue and the digital world. It's also a good book for people who are interested in the history of the Internet. Given how seminal it was, _Being Digital_ will never go completely out of date.