High tech psyche
If you want to be free in a digital age, must you switch off your computer, ask two new books, The End of Absence and The Glass Cage.
The End of Absence: Reclaiming what we’ve lost in a world of constant connection
by Michael Harris
Published by: HarperCollins
The Glass Cage: Automation and us
by Nicholas Carr
Published by: W. W. Norton
Joanna Kavenna of the New Scientist reviews two books that explore how to be genuinely yourself when always online.
“What is it like to be alive at the moment? How is our sense of self changed by what we experience? Can we even say there is such a thing as an indelible self of the kind envisioned by psychoanalyst Carl Jung? And, if so, what impact does technology have on it?
The End of Absence by Michael Harris and The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr grapple with these fundamental, intriguing questions. Harris discusses “what we’ve lost in a world of constant connection”, while Carr muses on how automation influences us. Both authors are concerned with the cyber revolution and how it has affected society and the self.”
