The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World
Jun 2015 · Random House
3.8star
5 reviewsreport
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272
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About this ebook
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2015
WINNER OF THE JERWOOD PRIZE
ONE OF WIRED's NON-FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE
We spend more time than ever online, and the digital revolution is rewiring our sense of what it means to be human. Smartphones let us live in one another's pockets, while websites advertise our spare rooms all across the world. Never before have we been so connected. Increasingly we are coaxed from the three-dimensional world around us and into the wonders of a fourth dimension, a world of digitised experiences in which we can project our idealised selves.
But what does it feel like to live in constant connectivity? What new pleases and anxieties are emerging with our exposure to this networked world? How is the relationship to our bodies changing as we head deeper into digital life? Most importantly, how do we exist in public with these recoded inner lives, and how do we preserve our old ideas of isolation, disappearance and privacy on a Google-mapped planet?
WINNER OF THE JERWOOD PRIZE
ONE OF WIRED's NON-FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE
We spend more time than ever online, and the digital revolution is rewiring our sense of what it means to be human. Smartphones let us live in one another's pockets, while websites advertise our spare rooms all across the world. Never before have we been so connected. Increasingly we are coaxed from the three-dimensional world around us and into the wonders of a fourth dimension, a world of digitised experiences in which we can project our idealised selves.
But what does it feel like to live in constant connectivity? What new pleases and anxieties are emerging with our exposure to this networked world? How is the relationship to our bodies changing as we head deeper into digital life? Most importantly, how do we exist in public with these recoded inner lives, and how do we preserve our old ideas of isolation, disappearance and privacy on a Google-mapped planet?
Ratings and reviews
3.8
5 reviews
Paul Savage
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April 24, 2021
Scott captures, in a very readable way, how we are spreading out into a fourth dimension and describes the psychological world we dwell in, as we constantly respond to our smart phones, our video chats, and texting apps. Particularly now, during the Covid pandemic, as many interact with colleagues and customers only through video or digital platforms. It reminds me of something in The Lord of the Rings. “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Николай Погодин
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June 9, 2016
Actually I only paid for this book by credit card and 3 minutes later there is this message: you have read the book. I haven't even opened it. Is this fair? 9 June. A new problem: every time I try to get to the last chapter (The Blank Screen)on pp 179-201, it flashes: Опаньки, возникли проблемы при отображении этой страницы.This has been going on since 7 June. Can something be done to do away with those Опаньки's?
Connor
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August 3, 2017
This book deserves more recognition. Well written and although I just skimmed some of the long-windedness, i definately intended to give it a 2nd pass one day.
About the author
Laurence Scott's book The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World (2015) was shortlisted for The Samuel Johnson Prize, won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize, and was named the Sunday Times ‘Thought Book of the Year’. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Guardian, Financial Times, New Statesman, Boston Globe, Wired and the London Review of Books. In 2011 he was named a ‘New Generation Thinker’ by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC, and now regularly writes and presents documentaries for BBC radio, as well as presenting and contributing to the Radio 3 arts and ideas programme, Free Thinking. He is a Lecturer in Writing at New York University in London, where he lives.
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