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    The Social Life of Information (Updated, with a New Preface-Revised)
    The Social Life of Information (Updated, with a New Preface-Revised)
    The Social Life of Information (Updated, with a New Preface-Revised)
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Social Life of Information (Updated, with a New Preface-Revised)

    Written by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

    Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    "Should be read by anyone interested in understanding the future," The Times Literary Supplement raved about the original edition of The Social Life of Information. We're now living in that future, and one of the seminal books of the Internet Age is more relevant than ever. The future was a place where technology was supposed to empower individuals and obliterate social organizations. Pundits predicted that information technology would spell the end of almost everythingfrom mass media to bureaucracies, universities, politics, and governments. Clearly, we are not living in that future. The Social Life of Information explains why. John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid show us how to look beyond mere information to the social context that creates and gives meaning to it. Arguing elegantly for the important role that human sociability plays, evenperhaps especiallyin the digital world, The Social Life of Information gives us an optimistic look beyond the simplicities of information and individuals. It shows how a better understanding of the contribution that communities, organizations, and institutions make to learning, working, and innovating can lead to the richest possible use of technology in our work and everyday lives. With a new introduction by David Weinberger and reflections by the authors on developments since the book's first publication, this new edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the human place in a digital world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 7, 2017
    ISBN9781501972300
    The Social Life of Information (Updated, with a New Preface-Revised)

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    Reviews for The Social Life of Information (Updated, with a New Preface-Revised)

    3.5/5

    167 ratings5 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Not updated enough. A lot of stories and events are over 20-30 years old. A lot of technologies have changed and book is a relic of the past.
    • 5/5
      Good stories of how Xerox repair people actually did their work, involving gossip after hours and idle chit-chat.
    • 3/5
      This book was quite dry, and not as inspiring as some othe rbooks I read at the time.
    • 4/5
      A book for class, and this one wasn't that great. The central thesis is that information cannot be looked at separately from the social context it exists in. There is a tendency among "technology people" to look at information in isolation, and often even to redefine the world in info-centric ways that trivialize the social networks that support it. An example is tech support in offices: everything only runs smoothly because when the new program crashes your computer, Ted three cubicles down had that happen to him last week, and can help you with it. Overall it's a good point and an interesting look at what I'm going to call the "sociology of technology."The book didn't grab me, though, and might have worked better as an article. Also (and this isn't really the author's fault, but it did majorly contribute to my opinion) the book was written in 2000 and it's about technology. Most of the points it makes are still relevant, but almost all of its examples were out of kilter with the way things actually work these days. Assumptions about what was going to "stick" that didn't, and so on. It's unfortunate, I guess, since the book was on an interesting subject and didn't really rely on totally up-to-date technology, but tech books just date really quickly and none of the examples seemed quite relevant anymore.Oh well. If you can get past the dating, I'd say this book was 4 stars. If not, maybe 2 1/2 or 3?
    • 4/5
      This book reports on ethnographic studies about how people use, share, and store information at work. While the book is comprehensive, and discusses interesting concepts like the the office go to person (and what to do when they leave), it is not as engagingly written as many of the books on this list, and as such not as highly rated.