Public parts : how sharing in the digital age improves the way we work and live

 by Jeff Jarvis. The author of What Would Google Do? (2009) returns with another thoughtful look at the Internet age. A welcome and well-reasoned counterpoint to the arguments that social-networking sites and the easy availability of personal information online are undermining our society and putting our safety at risk, the book shows how instruments of connectivity like Facebook, Wikipedia, and Twitter can be, if used constructively, major contributors to society. (Recall, for example, how early news out of Egypt during the recent revolution came via Twitter.) Jarvis doesn't ignore the downsides of online connectivity, of course, but he puts them in what appears to be a more objective context. With the recent publicity surrounding the Rupert Murdoch media empire and the cellphone-hacking scandal, the book's theme that the Internet is a valuable tool for social change might strike some readers as a bit ill-timed, but the argument is highly persuasive (especially when Jarvis shows how the printing press, like the Internet, also came with predictions of misuse, invasion of privacy, and disaster). A must-read for anyone interested in the issue of connectivity versus privacy. --Booklist (Check catalog)