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The advent of the Internet is a technological
breakthrough comparable to the invention of the printing
press. Its effect on individuals and society appears to
have profound consequences that we are only now beginning
to understand.
From the bestselling author of The Skin
Culture comes a groundbreaking book that provides an
essential understanding of the meaning of rapidly growing
networks on the World Wide Web and how they affect our lives
-- from business and commerce to politics, education and
the media.
Derrick de Kerckhove speculates on the consequences
of massive global networking -- and what might happen if
it reaches a critical mass of independent "connected
intelligence." Will the sum total of people's connected
intelligence be vastly more intelligent than any one person's
intelligence could hope to be? This startling proposition
points directly to the possibility that we are currently
undergoing one of the greatest leaps in the evolution of
our species. Connected intelligence may well be the next
step in the evolution of human intelligence.
Updating the communication critique traditions
of Harold Innis and Marshal McLuhan, Derrick de Kerckhove
focuses his erudition and imagination on issues raised by
this growing ecology of computer interaction.
Connected Intelligence is as prescient
a road map to the future as we can hope to have for the
present.
Derrick de Kerckhove is a Professor in
the Department of French and Director of the McLuhan Program
in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto.
Wade Rowland, who edited this book, is
an author who writes and lectures extensively on new media.
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