Net Smart

Like it or not, knowing how to make use of online tools without being overloaded withtoo much information is an essential ingredient to personal success in the twenty-first century. Buthow can we use digital media so that they make us empowered participants rather than passivereceivers, grounded, well-rounded people rather than multitasking basket cases? In NetSmart, cyberculture expert Howard Rheingold shows us how to use social mediaintelligently, humanely, and, above all, mindfully.

Mindful use of digital mediameans thinking about what we are doing, cultivating an ongoing inner inquiry into how we want tospend our time. Rheingold outlines five fundamental digital literacies, online skills that will helpus do this: attention, participation, collaboration, critical consumption of information (or "crapdetection"), and network smarts. He explains how attention works, and how we can use our attentionto focus on the tiny relevant portion of the incoming tsunami of information. He describes thequality of participation that empowers the best of the bloggers, netizens, tweeters, and otheronline community participants; he examines how successful online collaborative enterprisescontribute new knowledge to the world in new ways; and he teaches us a lesson on networks andnetwork building.

Rheingold points out that there is a bigger social issue atwork in digital literacy, one that goes beyond personal empowerment. If we combine our individualefforts wisely, it could produce a more thoughtful society: countless small acts like publishing aWeb page or sharing a link could add up to a public good that enriches everybody.

Howard Rheingold, an influential writer and thinker on social media, is the author of Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (both published by the MIT Press), and Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution.