What we have been reading
Here is what our team at Digital Bucket Company have been reading this month, when they seek escapism with a good novel, break-through intellect with the best non-fiction reads, and browse eye-catching headlines.
Books
Fiction
100 years of solitude — Gabriel Garcia Marquez
“100 Years of Solitude pushes the boundaries of what a novel can be. What makes it so important and captivating is how Gabriel Garcia Marquez finds and defines not only his individual identity, but the identity of a nation.”
The Magpie Society — Zoe Sugg and Amy McCulloch
Exit Music — Ian Rankin
Non-Fiction
Irresistible: Why you are addicted to technology and how to set yourself free — Adam Alter
In this eye-opening book, Alter takes us through the tricks designers use to hook us to our device, from automatically playing the next episode of Netflix to micro-rewards that keep us wanting more. The attention economy is devious and no-one is immune from addiction.
Reclaiming Conversation: The power of talk in the Digital Age — Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle is a leading psychologist in the affects of technology on our social lives and relationships. Leading on from her best-selling book ‘Alone together’, Turkle urges us to think about how our technology is pulling us away from face-to-face conversations, instead prioritising those connecting with us through the screen. The younger generations are growing up with less empathy for their peers as a result.
Invisible Women: Exposing data bias in a world designed for men — Caroline Criado-Perez
Criado-Perez exposes how the world is designed for the status-quo, for the default male. That even policies designed to help women only further exacerbate the problem. For instance, by giving scholars extra years to reach Tenure in order to account for the years women are not working due to childbirth simply gives men even more time to reach it, thus still creating a gender gap. Her other examples are startling, making this book a must-read for anyone aspiring for a truly equal society.
The age of Surveillance Capitalism — Professor Shoshana Zuboff
Zuboff delves into the dark side of the new style of business model popular with companies like Facebook and Google, a type of capitalism she calls “surveillance capitalism”. This capitalism, she notes, is an accumulation of data on our behaviour, which is free for the companies to access and use, that can be used to predict our next moves. These companies have a huge amount of power to influence our thinking.
Weapons of math destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy — Cathy O’Neil
O’Neil’s book about the how the workings of today’s algorithms reproduce inequality and bias is insightful and startling. Her chapters take a look at different sectors of our society, including insurance, advertising, education, and policing.
Articles
Videos
Global AI Summit 2020
Sherry Turkle: Technology and Empathy after Covid-19
Mark Zuckerberg and Yuval Noah Harari in Conversation
