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Future Minds: How the Digital Age is Changing Our Minds, Why This Matters and What We Can Do About It
 
 
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Future Minds: How the Digital Age is Changing Our Minds, Why This Matters and What We Can Do About It [Kindle Edition]

Richard Watson (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews) |
Digital List Price: £11.64 What's this?
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Review

A great case for how to think, not what to think in these fast moving and complex times. Watson s message is clear – our innate imagination and human ability to think deeply about life and issues are the best assets we have to deliver us safely to the future. Full of wonderfully inspired quotations, sage predictions and abundance of source material this is a "how to" that is a definitely a "must have."
Ellen Sideri, Founder & CEO, ESP Trendlab, New York

"A reflective and insightful look into how the next generation will think, feel and shape our society"
Baroness Susan Greenfield, CBE author of ID: The Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century

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Product Description

We are on the cusp of a revolution. Mobile phones, computers and iPods are commonplace in hundreds of millions of households worldwide, influencing how we think and shaping how we interact. With the gathering of information now largely automated, it leaves room for deeper conceptual thinking. The trouble is, says futurist Richard Watson, such deep thinking cannot take place if we never really sit still or completely switch off from the connected world. In this absorbing new book, Watson argues that despite the advances of the digital age, it has also robbed us of some of our best ideas; to regain them, he advocates for the benefits of boredom and going solo, among other techniques. Future Minds illustrates how to maximize the potential of digital technology and minimize its greatest downside, addressing the future of thinking and how we can ensure that we unleash the extraordinary potential of the human mind.
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Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 443 KB
  • Print Length: 225 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 185788549X
  • Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing (1 Nov 2010)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B004CRSN38
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #82,472 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Richard Watson
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
I was hoping that this would be an in-depth study into the effects of the rise and rise of computers on human cognition and attention span but in reality it's just a grumpy old geezer's attack on all things technological. There's a scattergun approach to quoting studies without context and lazy generalizations from extreme cases made all over the place (apparently we need all scientists to be untidy or they'll never discover anything). I suppose the author thinks if only we all dropped out of college like Bill Gates we'd all be billionaires! He seems to really lack rigor and his arguments appear to be a set of anecdotes masquerading as evidence. Overall its disappointing but probably enjoyable for old curmudgeons who want their predjudices about modern kids reinforced.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Overrated 6 Aug 2011
Format:Paperback
While I appreciate this book covers a topic worth discussing (otherwise why would I buy it?), I find the author's style very overbearing and overly personal. Often, something is presented as a truism "just because I say so", without significant facts to back it up and honestly, a lot of it seems to be written from a mish-mash of spoken presentations he has done, without any significant threads pulling it all together. I really struggled to get to the finish and I think you will too. I was almost glad the book ended early, as there are pages and pages of wasted references to other texts at the end, making the book twice the size it really is! Not good.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Rolf Dobelli TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Author and scenario planning consultant Richard Watson is clearly torn. One minute, he issues warnings about the negative effects of digital technologies on the brain and human society and discusses his fears that people pay insufficient attention to the possible consequences of these effects. The next minute, Watson is positively giddy and excited by the future potential of that same technology. The possibility of controlling machines with your mind, or improving your mental function by popping a pill, sounds like life in a science fiction utopia. But every utopia carries the possibility that it might turn into a dystopia that traps the human spirit: That's Watson primary concern and the insight he offers his readers. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone interested in futurism, cyberculture, digital technology or the ethics of human society.
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Popular Highlights

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We are currently so continually available that we have left ourselves no time to think properly about what we are doing. &quote;
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If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk? &quote;
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&quote;
As Albert Einstein said: The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. &quote;
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