kakishort's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.25
legs_mcgee's review against another edition
2.0
Not for me! Really interesting premise, but the asides were a bit too philosophical to hold my attention.
allieruth's review against another edition
4.0
ironically or not, I found this book harder to pay attention to as it went on. Odell's thesis, research, and earnest prose are all compelling, but the chapters also became a bit repetitive. still, glad I read this book and I'm sure it's one that'll linger.
poppyup's review against another edition
3.0
Hard to review this, some parts were enthralling and so full of meaning and insight that I had goosebumps (I would recommend buying this book just for chapter six alone). Other parts were so off piste and downright boring I’m surprised they weren’t chopped by the editor (the entirety of chapter three for example).
elizlizabeth's review against another edition
medium-paced
3.5
I feel like this wasn't for me specifically but it brings out a couple interesting takes. Would recommend if you're new to existentialist and/or enviromentalist philosophy. I found it to be a bit tone deaf at times but I could see that the author was trying to recognize her privilege and contextualize her discourse accordingly.
rick2's review against another edition
2.0
Do less. The world is mean and full of distractions. Do less.
More or less the gist of what I took away from this book. I think it was written for someone with a very different set of experiences than mine. I grew up on the cusp of the mobile wave. The iPhone came out when I was in high school. It seems like the author comes from a very different background.
And I guess that’s some of my frustration with this book. The author wants to moralize about technology. But it seems to come from a place of navel gazing. First by sharing her own life. Fine, but not a compelling sample size. Anecdotal evidence feels really important, but it is not real evidence. It’s one instance. And second, she doesn’t seem to understand the technology. All of her examples are ripped from other books, podcasts, and TED talks I have also mostly read and found lacking. Or her conclusions are not what I would agree with. She waxes poetic about Diogenes the Cynic as an example of a life lived on its own terms. The dude lived on the streets most of the time. Totally get it if that’s your thing. But I like my house. I’m fine exchanging some of my time for work to be able to continue to live in my house.
There’s this current of negativity around our technological lives that is easy to adopt. And I don’t think it’s authentic. I don’t mean that it’s fake, I think it’s more of a displacement of the general malease we feel at being alive. We aren’t running from predators, we aren’t constantly occupied by the search for food, so our minds have too much time to come up with neuroticisms. I think that artists, the lightning rods of felt human experience, are also very subject to this phenomenon. This book seems like it was written directly from that feeling.
So I guess, if you feel *feelings* about technology, maybe this book will help you to understand them and not feel so alone.
More or less the gist of what I took away from this book. I think it was written for someone with a very different set of experiences than mine. I grew up on the cusp of the mobile wave. The iPhone came out when I was in high school. It seems like the author comes from a very different background.
And I guess that’s some of my frustration with this book. The author wants to moralize about technology. But it seems to come from a place of navel gazing. First by sharing her own life. Fine, but not a compelling sample size. Anecdotal evidence feels really important, but it is not real evidence. It’s one instance. And second, she doesn’t seem to understand the technology. All of her examples are ripped from other books, podcasts, and TED talks I have also mostly read and found lacking. Or her conclusions are not what I would agree with. She waxes poetic about Diogenes the Cynic as an example of a life lived on its own terms. The dude lived on the streets most of the time. Totally get it if that’s your thing. But I like my house. I’m fine exchanging some of my time for work to be able to continue to live in my house.
There’s this current of negativity around our technological lives that is easy to adopt. And I don’t think it’s authentic. I don’t mean that it’s fake, I think it’s more of a displacement of the general malease we feel at being alive. We aren’t running from predators, we aren’t constantly occupied by the search for food, so our minds have too much time to come up with neuroticisms. I think that artists, the lightning rods of felt human experience, are also very subject to this phenomenon. This book seems like it was written directly from that feeling.
So I guess, if you feel *feelings* about technology, maybe this book will help you to understand them and not feel so alone.