Saturday, October 11, 2014

Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)

I used Amazon’s search bar to find the book I wanted to read. I typed in “information society” in the search bar and a lot of results came out. I also tried using the advanced search feature and set the date of publication to be after October 2012. In addition to Amazon, I also tried searching with WorldCat Google Books, and Library Thing.  The three books I found interesting were “Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking)”, “The End of Intelligence: Espionage and State Power in the Information Age” and “The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection”. I ended up choosing “Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking)” because I find it the most interesting out of the three. The title really strikes out and the word “dataclysm” makes me wonder what it actually means. I also checked the amazon reviews and found that they were 83 of them. The reviews are mostly positive, with only a few negative ones. The book is rated 4.2 out of 5 by 145 people so I think a lot of people enjoyed reading it.      


Citations to Reviews:

DATACLYSM. (2014). Kirkus Reviews, LXXXII(16) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/docview/1552643801?accountid=465

Jane, S. A. (2014, Oct 03). Book review: 'dataclysm' by christian rudder; on OKCupid, being black costs you almost a star on your rating. Wall Street Journal (Online) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/docview/1570775918?accountid=465

2 comments:

  1. This book sounds incredibly intriguing. Reading the reviews, it truly makes you think how our cloud can be discriminatory and too narrow minded of our interests. I remember doing an experiment with my Google activity for a class last semester, and it hit the nail on the head guessing my demographics based on my searches and sites that I visit. I think you will be able to draw some very thought provoking points from this text.

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  2. I actually was considering using this book before I saw it was taken. When I looked into the background of the author I ran into a bunch of fascinating posts he's done on statistics about relationships gathered from the dating site OkCupid. If you're interested in the topic of Dataclysm, this might also be relevant to you: blog.okcupid.com

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