Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better Hardcover – September 12, 2013

How do executives make decisions?My Bookbuzz colleague Alan Jordan has done a lot of work with executives on the way they think and make decisions. The key book is Kahneman's "Thinking fast and slow", but we have uses other books such as "This will make you smarter" which we reviewed on Newstalk recently.The contextThe internetWith clients we have also covered and solved issues and problems around the impact of the internet on information, decision making, social media and customer behaviour. From "The shallows" to "From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg" and from "Overconnected" to "Future minds" and lately two, what are probably fringe books "Too big to know" and "Present shock". Lets not forget "Future bubble"It is not overload, it is filter failureAmericans consumed about 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008. The difference between 0.3 and 3.6 zettabytes is ten times the total number of grains of sand on the earth. It's no longer information overload. That is a given. It's filter failureChaos!There is chaos on the information super highway, we can't see the woods from the trees, facts do not exist any more (every fact has an anti-fact on the web), we create our own belief bubbles, in ongoing fight or flight mode, our brains are mush and we are now driven by what the smart phone tells us.Disaster!Combine that with a huge overestimation of who or what you think make the decisions, as distinct from your monkey, lizard, elephant, underbelly and/or sub-conscience and you have a cocktail for disaster. Or do you?The contrast Nothing to worry about says Clive Thompson.In "Smarter than you think, how technology is changing our mind for the better" he talks about how technology makes us smarter and better. The perfect anti book and contrast to the books I mentionedSmarter, betterTechnology and the internet are not an either/or concepts. It helps us to be smarter (augmented intelligence, where we use the internet as a tool). It gives eternal memory, where we can recall anything and learn form it. We are creating cognitive diversity where we can test, discuss and distribute our thinking. Allowing us to become conversational thinkers (the way Socrates wanted it). With ALL knowledge at our fingertips. And being able to tap into the collective wisdom of the people we are connected with. Being ambient aware.Different types of literacyTechnology has also made us more literate (we are writing and reading more than ever with texts, e-mails, tweets, etc.), but is also creating different type of literacy in video, image, data and soon 3D printing. Making the ways to express ourselves richer.Take a digital SabbathIf you put it that way, it is difficult to argue. He does make reference to the FOMO syndrome (Fear Of Missing Out), constant distraction and recency effects and the need to be mindful and aware of how you think. Which brings us back to Kahneman. His advice. Take digital Sabbaths. Step out of the stream on a regular basis and meditate.Watson, the Jeopardy super computerHe ends with Watson, the super computer that can play Jeopardy. Near AI. They are now applying it to help doctors do diagnoses bases on the answers the patient give. In 5 years you will have Watson on your phone.Your own WatsonWhom will be your digital, ambient, super smart, digital assistant who can help you with memory, knowledge, thinking and a lot more. And what will happen then? That is how Clive Thompson ends the book. How should you respond when you get powerful new tools for finding answers? Think of harder problems to solve.The future is bright.The applicationWhy is this relevant to business?Watson can and will also advice on best buy, best price, best customer feedback. If it makes people better, it will make businesses better. In fact all rules apply. Think data, improvement, innovation, access to knowledge and a double edge sword. If you don't, your competitor will.

We have become Formula 1 drivers. Those who do best are not the smartest among us, although cognition is important. Nor is it the people with the best technology, although computing power is important. Doing things in the digital age is a matter of driving good computers well.This is just one of the powerful metaphors in Thompson's book. It's not an academic book; it's accessible; it doesn't proceed via theory and proof. It doesn't need to. The great contribution of the book is to help us understand how technology enhances our thinking. It suggests ways of thinking about technology. And the book's suggestions are wonderful, consistently hitting the sweet spot of all such writing: Thoughts that I hadn't thought before, yet on reflection are true based on my own considered experience.The one about driving computers, above, is quite good. Here's another: Memory is like playing telephone with yourself. Thompson uses that to make the reader understand how poor our recall can be. This drives home the point that digital storage, which can now keep everything and do a good job of organizing and playing it back too, represents a dramatic enhancement.And a third: Everyone today is in an 18th century coffeehouse, where wit and evidence make the atmosphere sparkle. Thompson points out that everyone writes a great deal more now than they once did, another one of the many factoids in the book that is obvious when you think about it, but, you hadn't really thought about it before. With all this writing, often in cramped conditions (tweets), everybody has to make their writing pithy, elegant, and pointed. Writing is thinking...so we're a culture of better thinkers.It just goes on and on. Thompson's not here to present a research review, he's pointing to the gorilla who snuck into the room while we weren't looking. It's a great book.[Edit: I just purchased four copies to give to leaders at my university.]

You know these annoying people who always complain about how young people don't know how to... insert whatever overrated skill they have here? They need to read this book. It discusses very intelligently the pros and cons of how what is a useful skill has changed since the Internet came into our lives. BOTH sides of the story, this is the only book I've ever found that even acknowledges that there are more than one. Many good parallels based on history, with comparisons to both the introduction of writing to the classical Greeks and of printing to 16th century Europe. We are living a revolution, and this is the most thoughtful analysis of what it means I have ever had the pleasure to come across. Well written too, and explains technology lightly and clearly.

I'm going to give this 3.5 stars. While this is a bit dated and some of the technologies and apps in this book have come and gone, the ideas that Mr. Thompson explains here still hold true today. Many of the technologies are being made better and are still trying to evolve. The problem doesn't come from the content that he writes but the repetitive themes that he touches on in each chapter. While I understand driving the point home and trying to get us excited for the possibility of what we might have in the future, Mr. Thompson tries to beat a dead horse by explaining everything in his chapters three or four times. This makes the chapters longer than the need to be, but also makes me lose focus quickly because after reading about the same thing over and over, I got heavy eyes that too the joy out of the reading about the future. Mr. Thompson did his homework and is very passionate about what he writes about which is great, but I think that expanding on a topic than giving 4 examples of the same thing would make this book a lot better.

Valuable survey of developments in neursocience and their impact on psychology

Great book, really nicely designed as well, good service, thank you!

Great, exactly as described, many thanks

Very interesting approach on technology. Especially enjoyed all the positive views about, and then the parts that where bring it back to earth.I recommend it.

Sturgeon's law : "90% of everything(especially on the internet) is crap"Anyone familiar with Cal Newport's Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World or Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains or any book by Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff knows too well about the negative effects of Internet on our thinking. Nicolas Carr describes this as Juggler's Brain: a mind that can't learn things because it doesn't stand still long enough"What makes Clive Thompson's book interesting is that it gives an Optimistic(Contrary to most books on the effect of Internet on Human Cognition) and insightful on how the internet is shaping our thinking positively.The Printed World extended our cognition. It made our learning and cognition linear and abstract. This helped humans to remember less and works on more novel ideas.However our Brain is a pattern-recognition machine and Internet is dot connecting machine. Our Brain works in non-linear, sporadic manner most of the times. So together and working side by side; these tools can make even amateurs radically smarter(not morally better) even when we are not actively connected to them.Internet enabled us to externalise our memories, help us catalog important life events in an unlimited manner. Most importantly internet enabled Public thinking for average people. Historically reading is given precedence over writing especially if you're an average non-literary person."Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man" - Sir Francis BaconThere is no arguing that writing crystallises you thoughts and gives clarity. And internet has given us ( average non-literary person)all a platform to write for pleasure or intellectual satisfaction (which people rarely do after graduation). Thanks to Audience effect and Generation effect we become more articulate and develop deeper thinking and understanding. Internet also help us learn new things in non-linear, self-driven pace which was not possible earlier.But what about the bullying and abuses online? To be fair internet didn't create these behaviours. It just gave a new platform. The best way to reduce these behaviour is to follow strict social protocol as individuals and society."One of the greatest Challenge of Today's digital thinking tools is knowing when NOT to use them, when to rely on the powers of older and slower technologies like paper and book"Frankly the Attention economy is eating away our attention span. Social media is a constant distraction. The author argues in order to effectively use these digital tools we should cultivate the practise of mindfulness and follow strict protocols on how we use these tools.The Author argues we need a New Magna Carta for the Digital Age especially after Snowden revelations on NASA PRISM surveillance and take measures to guard our privacy.Overall its an optimistic and interesting read. It has opened a new perspective to me on the effects of digital tools and gave me some ideas to play with.