Books like Superconnected by Mary T. Chayko

Explore how the digital age reshapes order, showing that everything is now miscellaneous and how this shift transforms business, education, politics, science, and culture.

Annotation

"Social media penetrate our lives: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and many other platforms define daily habits of communication and creative production. This book studies the rise of social media, providing both a historical and a critical analysis of the emergence of major platforms in the context of a rapidly changing ecosystem of connective media. Author José van Dijck offers an analytical prism that can be used to view techno-cultural as well as socio-economic aspects of this transformation as well as to examine shared ideological principles between major social media platforms. This fascinating study will appeal to all readers interested in social media."--Publisher's website.

"From Facebook to the iPhone, from YouTube to Wikipedia, from Grand Theft Auto to Second Life - this book explores new media's most important issues and debates in an accessible and engaging text for newcomers to the field." "With technological change continuing to unfold at an incredible rate, Digital Cultures rounds-up major events in the media's recent past to help develop a clear understanding of the theoretical and practical debates that surround this emerging discipline." "Each chapter includes a case study which provides an interesting and lively balance between the well-trodden and the newly emerging themes in the field. Digital Cultures is an essential introductory guide for all media and communication studies students, as well as those with a general interest in new media and its impact on the world around us."--Jacket.

Daily life is connected life, its rhythms driven by endless email pings and responses, the chimes and beeps of continually arriving text messages, tweets and retweets, Facebook updates, pictures and videos to post and discuss. Our perpetual connectedness gives us endless opportunities to be part of the give-and-take of networking. Some worry that this new environment makes us isolated and lonely. But in Networked, Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman show how the large, loosely knit social circles of networked individuals expand opportunities for learning, problem solving, decision making, and personal interaction. The new social operating system of “networked individualism” liberates us from the restrictions of tightly knit groups; it also requires us to develop networking skills and strategies, work on maintaining ties, and balance multiple overlapping networks. Rainie and Wellman outline the “triple revolution” that has brought on this transformation: the rise of social networking, the capacity of the Internet to empower individuals, and the always-on connectivity of mobile devices. Drawing on extensive evidence, they examine how the move to networked individualism has expanded personal relationships beyond households and neighborhoods; transformed work into less hierarchical, more team-driven enterprises; encouraged individuals to create and share content; and changed the way people obtain information. Rainie and Wellman guide us through the challenges and opportunities of living in the evolving world of networked individuals.

An incisive study of American youth, examining how digital media have reshaped attitudes, education, and civic engagement among those under thirty.