A review by maxdug
Lurking: How a Person Became a User by Joanne McNeil

4.0

It is a history of the internet, viewed through the lens of how we as users have been treated and have evolved to match. After the book gets up to the modern internet, it reads like a collection of well researched analysis on each major internet company - there is quite a bit about facebook, google, and wikipedia. But it helped put into perspective my own interaction with the internet and showed my privilege in how I use it minimally. The book doesn’t offer a discrete solution for the current woes of our lives online, but rather calls out the good areas where we can lean in and the bad areas where we can start to take ourselves offline or embrace alternatives. I love that the book doesn’t prescribe a magic bullet, but shows a path where people can have options and find communities to feel protected within.