The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data - Softcover

Michael P. Lynch is the director of the Humanities Institute and a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut. His previous books include True to Life, an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times Book Review. A recipient of the Medal for Research Excellence from the University of Connecticut’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Lynch has held grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times. He lives in Storrs, Connecticut.

“We now only rarely discover facts, Lynch observes; instead, we download them. Of course, we also upload them: with each click and keystroke, we hack off tiny bits of ourselves and glom them on to a data Leviathan...The root of the problem, as he sees it, is a well-known paradox: reason can’t defend itself without resort to reason.”
- Jill Lepore, The New Yorker

“In The Internet of Us, Michael P. Lynch begins by pointing out, rightly enough, that in the age of the Internet we seem simultaneously to know more and know less. This leads him, philosopher that he is, to ask some questions about what it means to say that we know something...Mr. Lynch’s basic argument is that if we understand better the conditions under which knowledge is produced and disseminated―conditions he explores clearly and cogently―then we will become more ‘responsible’ knowers.”
- Alan Jacobs, Wall Street Journal

“An excellent, much-needed contribution to the constant battle to sort truth from falsity.”
- Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“A bracing challenge to Internet enthusiasts.”
- Booklist

“To object to the internet would be like objecting to the atmosphere. But just as the atmosphere can be too warm, too toxic or can send violent storms our way, so, too, can the infosphere create many difficulties, not the least of which is the conflict between privacy and security. Luckily, there’s a new book out there by philosopher Michael P. Lynch. The Internet of Us shares my appreciation for what is less a new technology than a new way of knowing.”
- Robert M. Thorson, Hartford Courant

“In this age of ‘surf Google now,’ everyone is an expert by virtue of the instant ability to click for answers...Lynch’s treatise shows us that constantly forsaking the effort to dig and analyze in favor of quick information is a recipe for disaster that too often results in impulsive half-formed decisions...[T]his is a must read book.”
- Electric Review

“Combing the sharp insights of a leading philosopher with the lucid, accessible style of a natural historian, Lynch shows us how, as ‘knowledge’ has become a manufactured―and controlled―commodity, genuine understanding and creativity are becoming dangerously scarce. Essential reading for educators, parents, policymakers and, one hopes, those pulling the levers in the knowledge economy.”
- Paul Roberts, author of The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification

“Michael P. Lynch is a deep thinker and a wise soul. In his beautifully written The Internet of Us, he goes to the heart of a high-stakes existential drama in which nothing less than the fates of knowledge, education, democracy and what it means to be human are at stake.”
- Owen Flanagan, author of The Geography of Morals: Varieties of Moral Possibility