For those of you interested in the ways technology affects our brain and behaviour, I highly recommend 'The Shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains' by Nicholas Carr. A new 2020 edition of this book has been published and it summarizes a lot of the key literature and thinking on how the internet has changed our attention and memory processing.
I've been thinking and writing a lot about deep, focused work - which can feel like a lost art some days when we feel like we're being distracted by our 100th email or phone notification. I read this book last month and really enjoyed the way the author outlines how different technologies have changed us individually and collectively throughout the course of history. It really helps us to establish how we 'got here' in terms of our current understanding of the internet and social media .
Unlike other books and documentaries on this topic, the writer is mostly tech-neutral but does present some of the scientific evidence in a way that will make you question whether the internet has caused some valuable cognitive skills to decline (negative impacts on our long term memory and attention) whilst boosting others (multi-tasking and surface reading/browsing multiple streams of information).
Happy reading! Let me know if you have similar tech-related reading or viewing recommendations!