Untangling The Web

Review Who better to guide us through online culture than Aleks Krotoski? She has been examining this fast-changing frontier since the last century as journalist and social psychologist, and her new collection of essays is born of that long engagement with the Internet's opportunities ... [Krotoski's] informed positivity is a pragmatic way forward. ― Metro The academia-meets-media credentials make for a tome that is both chatty and meaty. It is also free from the overplayed polemics that characterise all too many titles in this field ... [Krotoski's] combination of cautious academic rigour and geek-like enthusiasm makes a very valuable contribution to the debate and leads her to two refreshing conclusions. -- Business Section ― Financial Times [Krotoski is a perceptive observer of our information ecosystem ...Untangling the Web is a collection of 17 thoughtful essays on the impact of comprehensive networking on our lives. These essays cover the spectrum of stuff we need to think about - from the obvious ones to topics to which we don't pay enough attention. Although she's a glamorous media "star", people underestimate Krotoski at their peril. She's a rare combination of academic, geek, reporter and fluent essayist. -- John Naughton ― Observer Product Description The World Wide Web is the most revolutionary innovation of our time. In the last decade, it has utterly transformed our lives. But what real effects is it having on our social world? What does it mean to be a modern family when dinner table conversations take place over smartphones? What happens to privacy when we readily share our personal lives with friends and corporations? Are our Facebook updates and Twitterings inspiring revolution or are they just a symptom of our global narcissism? What counts as celebrity, when everyone can have a following or be a paparazzo? And what happens to relationships when love, sex and hate can be mediated by a computer? Social psychologist Aleks Krotoski has spent a decade untangling the effects of the Web on how we work, live and play. In this groundbreaking book, she uncovers how much humanity has - and hasn't - changed because of our increasingly co-dependent relationship with the computer. In Untangling the Web, she tells the story of how the network became woven in our lives, and what it means to be alive in the age of the Internet. Book Description Untangling the Web by Aleks Krotoski - award-winning social psychologist - gives us the truth about life in the age of the Internet. About the Author Aleks Krotoski is an academic and journalist who writes about and studies technology and interactivity. She is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Media and Communications Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute. Aleks writes for the Guardian and Observer newspapers, and hosts Tech Weekly, their technology podcast. In 2010 she presented the Emmy- and Bafta- winning BBC 2 series Virtual Revolution, about the social history of the World Wide Web. Her writing appears in Nature, BBC Technology, New Statesman, MIT Technology Review and the Telegraph. She is also the New Media Sector Champion for UKTI, the government department that promotes British businesses around the world.