For anyone who wants to know where the social media road is leading, this is an important, worrisome book.
A disturbing look at the turbulent world of social media and its impact on adolescents.
Weinstein and James, researchers at Project Zero at Harvard, structure their book around surveys and interviews that get at the heart of a simple yet fraught question: “What worries you most about today’s digital world?” The responses varied so much that the authors often found it difficult to reach any definitive answers, but the process revealed numerous surprises. A predictable but significant finding was that many teens are concerned that they spend too much time on social media, distracting them from the real world. Many are not getting enough sleep because they are constantly worried that they might miss something. However, they also believe that disconnecting is not an option. “For many teens, technologies are a non-negotiable for friendship preservation,” write the authors. “There’s no way to opt out without major social repercussions. They wish adults would acknowledge this reality.” There is also a sense of constantly being under scrutiny. One wrong text, post, or action can result in ostracism or worse. For example, one boy who rejected the romantic advances of a girl found himself accused of being a rapist on social media. Some teens refuse to reveal their political views because of the possible consequences, and the result is an echo chamber of enforced consensus. In fact, one of the most vicious debates that Weinstein and James encountered was whether it was acceptable to even consider the views of people who disagree with you. It all sounds like a labyrinth of constant pressure, image comparison, and virtue signaling. In the concluding chapter, the authors offer advice for parents, emphasizing the need to avoid simplistic solutions, to understand the complexity of the social media environment, and to listen with empathy.
For anyone who wants to know where the social media road is leading, this is an important, worrisome book.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-262-04735-7
Page Count: 264
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
The sub-title of this book is "Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools." But one finds in it little about education, and less about the teaching of English. Nor is this volume a defense of the Christian faith similar to other books from the pen of C. S. Lewis. The three lectures comprising the book are rather rambling talks about life and literature and philosophy. Those who have come to expect from Lewis penetrating satire and a subtle sense of humor, used to buttress a real Christian faith, will be disappointed.
Pub Date: April 8, 1947
ISBN: 1609421477
Page Count: -
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1947
Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.
But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.
But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.
Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1979
ISBN: 0312427565
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979
BOOK TO SCREEN
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