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Lurking: How a Person Became a User
by
22/99
Critics' Rating Index
15/99
Readers' Rating Index
86/99
Scholars' Citation Index
95/99
Volume of Reviews
28/99
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About This Book
A concise but wide-ranging personal history of the internet from—for the first time—the point of view of the user In a shockingly short amount of time, the internet has bound people around the world together and torn us apart and changed not just the way we communicate but who we are and who we can be. It has created a new, unprecedented cultural space that we are all a part of—even if we don't participate, that is how we participate—but by which we're continually surprised, betrayed, enriched, befuddled. We have churned through platforms and technologies and in turn been churned by them. And yet, the internet is us and always has been. In Lurking, Joanne McNeil digs deep and identifies the primary (if sometimes contradictory) concerns of people online: searching, safety, privacy, identity, community, anonymity, and visibility. She charts what it is that brought people online and what keeps us here even as the social equations of digital life—what we're made to trade, knowingly or otherwise, for the benefits of the internet—have shifted radically beneath us. It is a story we are accustomed to hearing as tales of entrepreneurs and visionaries and dynamic and powerful corporations, but there is a more profound, intimate story that hasn't yet been told. Long one of the most incisive, ferociously intelligent, and widely respected cultural critics online, McNeil here establishes a singular vision of who we are now, tells the stories of how we became us, and helps us start to figure out what we do now.
Reviews
"Her book is that trickiest of things: a cautionary tale without a Golden Age ..."
"history of the internet articulating the sensations of being online that users everywhere will recognize."
"New apps promise to make the coronavirus crisis manageable by tracing our movements and alerting us if close physical contacts get sick."
"Rapidly expanding and contracting in scope and linked by meandering transitions, the book has a flavor of disorganization that will feel familiar to those of us who have spent many hours browsing aimlessly: digressive, curious, sometimes a little haphazard."
"McNeil shares stories of her online past that are especially valuable in illuminating such early innovations as AOL's free trial CDs."
"The result feels like a small exhibition, full of pleasing digressions and well-curated associations."
"She is an idealist who is also careful to avoid the trap of pining for an Internet that never actually existed ..."
"Lurking is...like infinite scroll."
"Her account is impressively and even dizzyingly far-reaching, to the point that its many tidbits of information sometimes blur together."
"Sharp, broad-ranging techno-criticism that merits attention."
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