Knowledge base / Essays & Ideas / Mathematics & technology books
You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier
About the book
You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier (2010) is a critique of “Web 2.0” culture by a virtual-reality pioneer. Lanier argues that certain design choices in software and the early social web, anonymity, the hive-mind, treating people as interchangeable data, diminish individual creativity and humanity. He makes a case for technology that elevates the person rather than the crowd. An early, influential warning about the direction of the modern internet.