A frightening diagnosis of a corrosive plague by an articulate expert in the field.
Something has gone seriously wrong with American society, and the root cause is digital technology.
As the director of a mental health clinic and a one-time heroin addict, Kardaras understands the nature of addiction. As he shows, social media and computer games can be as addictive and toxic as any chemical, leading to anxiety, depression, and despair. In his 2016 book, Glow Kids, the author examined the impact of the internet on children. Here, he takes a broader view, looking not just at teenagers and adults, but at society as a whole. Though he has seen many patients with borderline personality disorder, he believes that it is dramatically underreported. Many intense users of technology have fallen into a pattern of binary thinking, able to see only extremes and suffering from a lack of empathy. They are perpetually angry, fearful, and impulsive—all signs of BPD. Others have a deep sense of self-loathing and frustration, terrified that they will never meet the standards of the media influencers they follow. This has also led to political polarization, isolation, and a breakdown of long-standing social contracts. Added to the mental troubles are the physical effects of spending so much time glued to screens, particularly obesity and diabetes. Kardaras emphasizes that the effects of addiction are known by the tech companies, but they choose to do nothing because their profits are based on it. “I freely concede that we have achieved wondrous advancements in our technological abilities,” he writes. “But our species is deteriorating; we’re getting weaker, both physically and mentally.” As a therapist, he offers a plan for breaking the cycle of addiction, focused on finding a meaningful purpose and building real-life social connections. The difficulty with this is that it only works for those who want to recover, and the reality is that most tech addicts—like any other category of addict—won’t admit the problem.
A frightening diagnosis of a corrosive plague by an articulate expert in the field.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27849-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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