Hooked and the clash of RL and online culture
On my way to work this morning for a Saturday shift at the library, I heard an an interview on WBUR with Matt Richtel, author of Hooked: a thriller about love and other addictions, which included an interesting look at how the internet is shaping how people think and socialize, as well as how humans as a race are evolving to simply best use the tools at their disposal.
I haven’t read the book, but this little snippet from the NPR site just a nice job of summing up bits about the book that I heard in the interview:
The New York Times writer quickly found himself weaving aspects of his day job — covering technology in Silicon Valley — into his own reflections on relationships. The result is his fast-paced thriller about wired-world intrigue and lost love.
The book sounds very intriguing, and I’ve added it to the To Read list in my Books application on Facebook (you can read an excerpt online). What was really worth the listen (7m21sec) was the part about the social impact of the online world on real life (RL), and just how people are really designed to change and adapt depending on what tools are made available to them. So, really, in a sense, the way that the online world is changing society is somewhat of a natural progression, and adaptation to new life tools.
I’m a big believer in increasing the everyday usability of libraries as a place and a social infrastructure (as opposed to the technology, which I’m a fan of, too; I’m just not talking about that right now). The best way to do that is to understand our users, and adapt their use of tools to services, resources, and tools in libraries. It’s not always just about having the wiki or blog or MySpace page, but understanding the *culture* behind it. Once we master that, I think I’ll truly believe it when Cori Doctorow says that “librarians are cultural heroes*.”
* I met Cori Doctorow at a presentation he gave at MIT a while back. Upon telling him that I was friends with John Klima, a fellow librarian with whom Cori has worked in the past, he promptly said that I, too, must be librarian, and that “Librarians are cultural heroes.” I remember it fondly.
Tags: books, technology
