Douglas Rushkoff, "Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now" (Current, 2013)

Summary

Humans understand the world through stories, some short and some long. But what happens when the stories become so short that they, well, aren't stories at all? In Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now (Current, 2013), Douglas Rushkoff explores this question. He points out that always-on, always "new" digital communications have essentially locked us into an ever-more data-rich "moment," one from which we cannot really escape. The past becomes a few minutes ago; the future a few minutes hence. Of course it's always always been "now" (as Buddhists will tell you), but now the "now" is far more captivating than ever before. What's it all mean? Rushkoff explains.

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Marshall Poe

Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com.

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