Networked: The New Social Operating System

Daily life is connected life, its rhythms driven by endless email pings and responses, the chimes and beeps of continually arriving text messages, tweets and retweets, Facebook updates, pictures and videos to post and discuss. Our perpetual connectedness gives us endless opportunities to be part of the give-and-take of networking. Some worry that this new environment makes us isolated and lonely. But in Networked, Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman show how the large, loosely knit social circles of individuals expand opportunities for learning, problem solving, decision making, and personal interaction. The new social operating system of networked liberates us from the restrictions of tightly knit groups; it also…