An Introduction to Cyberculture

Rating:
Summary: Tries to see the future
Review: So here you are in the 21st century. And you still don't look like the Jetsons. But perhaps you want to see what is coming down the pike?

The book offers suggestions on the future, by examining the so-called cyberculture. A nonlinear blend of fact and cyberpunk science fiction. The facts include trends in hardware and software engineering. Plus the social usages of these. Like the rise of massive multiplayer environments (Everquest etc). And how people voluntarily immerse themselves in these in an addictive wirehead mode. Where wirehead is a term borrowed from science fiction of the 1980s and earlier, when this behaviour was predicted.

The book examines the rise of a new type of community, mainly extent on the Web, comprised of people, most of whom will never meet in person. How exotic this would have seemed in the 1970s. Yet this has crept up on us. Is this a harbinger? Will people withdraw into themselves and their net connections? Such issues are speculated upon in the book.

As you can imagine, the book span many fields, including sociology, psychology, computer science and science fiction. Worth a perusal.