Digital Is Destroying Everything Hardcover English by Andrew V. Edwards - 1/Jun/15

Andrew V. Edwards

Every year, perhaps even every week, there is some new gadget, device, service, or other digital offering intended to make our lives easier, better, more fun, or more instantaneous--making it that much harder to question how anything digital can be bad for us. Digital has created some wonderful things and we can hardly imagine life without them. But digital-the most relentless social and economic juggernaut humanity has unleashed in centuries-is also destroying much we had taken for granted. And what is your place in this brave new world? In Digital Is Destroying Everything, futurist and digital marketing consultant Andrew Edwards tours the "blasted heath" digital is leaving behind and takes a fearless look at the troubled landscape that may lie ahead. The book is not, despite its title, a dystopian rant against all things digital and technological. Instead, expect to find a lively investigation into the ways digital has opened us to new and sometimes quite wonderful experiences, driven down costs for consumers, and given information a chance to be free. But the book also takes a clear-eyed look at many of the good (and sometimes bad) things-businesses and behaviors-digital has destroyed, and how the world may be diminished, compromised, and altered forever in its wake. This tour of the effects of digital technologies on our lives is sure to raise questions, touch a nerve, and enlighten even the most dedicated digital enthusiasts.

1442246510

9781442246515

English

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

1/Jun/15

246

Andrew V. Edwards is a digital marketing executive with twenty years of experience serving large organizations, and has been an operating executive and digital marketing consultant since the 1980s. Currently he is a Partner at Efectyv Digital, a strategic consulting firm. In the 1990s he pioneered web development and was involved in early tests of interactive television. Since 2002, Edwards has been consulting with Fortune 500 companies about digital analytics. In 2004 he co-founded the Digital Analytics Association. A recognized thought-leader in the industry, Edwards writes regularly for ClickZ, the world's most complete information source about digital marketing; and has spoken at events like eMetrics, the OMMA Mobile Conference, The DMA Conference, The DAA Symposium and at ClickZ Live. His blog can be found at Tomorrow's Ghost - By Andrew Edwards

Digital marketing executive Edwards has some valid. . . .points to make about the wide-ranging effects of digital communications technology. According to Edwards, the ever-growing role of the online world has crippled brick and mortar retail, endangered the future of cities, weakened human connections, exterminated privacy, and made perpetual underemployment almost inevitable-and that's just a partial list. Edwards does acknowledge the hyperbole of the title and the book's general thrust; the penultimate chapter. . . .enumerate[s] how the interconnected world has changed lives for the better. He notes how hard some things were before the digital revolution, and believes that it's 'possible that digital is the equivalent of agriculture in the evolution of the species.' Despite this effort at balance, readers will come away with a growing sense of unease at how insidiously digital advances have invaded our lives and modes of thinking. * Publishers Weekly * Futurist and digital-marketing consultant Edwards uses 'digital' to describe IT without ranting, but rather exploring. Stating, 'Digital entrepreneurs . . . with the Darwinistic ethos of Silicon Valley . . . seem to believe their achievements approach a condition of natural law driven by their . . . gold rather than the digital utopia they . . . suggest they're creating.' He sees piracy as seriously compromising cultural arts, yet also perceives a micro-fan-based business model that is more successful than stadium concerts. While mourning newsprint shrinkage, he claims, 'digital took away the ad dollars-newspapers took away the news' by cutting resources, yet acknowledges that one cannot readily share articles from newsprint while digital news thrives in the virtual space of global social-media interaction. Hence, digital-market hegemony via global reach is the long game, which is harmful to consumers. A thought-provoking and controversial analysis. * Booklist * With Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the proliferation of cell phone apps, the digital age has created a revolution in lifestyles, education, finance, retail, and politics. In this book, Edwards, a digital marketing executive, investigates both the good and the bad of this new digital world. The good is easy to understand: lower costs of goods and increased communication. The bad involves reshaping the economy in potentially undesirable ways. Edwards includes chapters on digital threats to record companies, newspapers, photographic studios, and artists Privacy is often compromised when millennials are more willing to share their private information with others and governments request personal information to enhance security. According to the author, one key to reducing digital challenges is to have more face-to-face meetings. The book contains many references to current events published in popular newspapers and magazines. . . .Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners.