data smog

A couple years ago I took a course on the uses of information and the Internet in education. One of the required texts was David Shenk's Data Smog, which I found compelling and timely even though it had been written several years earlier. One thing I pointed out in my comments to class was the fact that book did not (or perhaps more accurately, could not) address the rise of blogs, which were at the time just reaching popular consciousness. So now, ten years after the book's publication Shenk takes a look back at the book and, among other things, mentions the absence of blogs. Like Shenk I totally agree that much of the book is still worth reading and thinking about--probably more so than in 1997.