Glass Cage

Nicholas Carr is the author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, a 2011 Pulitzer Prize nominee and a New York Times bestseller, as well as two other influential books, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008) and Does IT Matter? (2004). His books have been translated into more than 20 languages. (www.nicholascarr.com)

"Nicholas Carr is among the most lucid, thoughtful and necessary thinkers alive. The Glass Cage should be required reading for everyone with a phone" -- Jonathan Safran Foer "Written with restrained objectivity, The Glass Cage is nevertheless as scary as any sci-fi thriller could be" -- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience "Nicholas Carr is the rare thinker who understands that technological progress is both essential and worrying. The Glass Cage is a call for technology that complements our human capabilities, rather than replacing them" -- Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody "A very necessary book, that we ignore at our peril. I read it without putting it down" -- Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary "An important book ... deep and valuable" The Times "Brings a much-needed humanistic perspective to the wider issues of automation ... a persuasive ... wide-ranging book" Financial Times "Elegantly persuasive ... In his thoughtful, non-strident way, he is simply pointing out that the cost of automation may be far higher than we have realised" Telegraph "Excellent ... beautifully written ... Put down your phone, take off your Google Glass and read this" BBC Focus "A valuable corrective to the belief that technology will cure all ills, and a passionate plea to keep machines the servants of humans, not the other way round" Sunday Times "Carr argues, very convincingly, that automation is eroding our memory while simultaneously creating a complacency within us that will diminish our ability to gain new skills ... I had always wondered if it were possible Google Maps was ruining my sense of direction. Now I am certain of it" Evening Standard "Fascinating ... With digital technology today we are roughly at the stage we were with the car in the 1950s - dazzled by its possibilities and unwilling to think seriously about its costs ... [this] nuanced account ... is very good" New Statesman "Who is it serving, this technology, asks Carr. Us? Or the companies that make billions from it? Billions that have shown no evidence of trickling down ... It's hard not to read the chapter on lethal autonomous robots - technology that already exists - without thinking of the perpetual warfare of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four" Observer "An eye-opening expose of how automation is altering our ability to solve problems, forge memories and acquire skills" Bookseller