Offline: Free Your Mind from Smartphone and Social Media Stress

$27.95

SKU: 9780857087935 Categories: , ,

Authors Imran Rashid and Soren Kenner have sparked an international debate by revealing the “mind hacks” Facebook, Apple, Google, and Instagram use to get you and your children hooked on their products.

In Offline, they deliver an eye-opening research-based journey into the world of tech giants, smartphones, social engineering, and subconscious manipulation. This provocative work shows you how digital devices change individuals and communities for better and worse.

A must-read if you or your kids use smartphones or tablets and spend time browsing social networks, playing online games or even just browsing sites with news and entertainment.

Learn how to recognize ‘mind hacks’ and avoid the potentially disastrous side-effects of digital pollution. Unplug from the matrix. Learn digital habits that work for you.

Contents:

  • Acknowledgments xi
  • Introduction: Offline 1
  • Are You Being Digitally Manipulated? 5
  • Access to Your Attention Has Become a Commodity 8
  • Technology Is Good. But Use it Carefully! 10
  • How This Book Is Structured 15
  • Chapter One 17
  • A Tsunami of Technological Transformation 17
  • Imperceptible Change 19
  • Because Your Eyeballs Are Worth It 21
  • Social Media: The Global Village 23
  • Tackling the Onslaught of Information 26
  • Chapter Two 30
  • A Fire upon the Deep 30
  • Developing Bigger Brains Was an Evolutionary Gamble 31
  • The Three Layers of Your Brain 33
  • Prefiltering and Neuroplasticity: Your Adaptable Brain 45
  • Is Your Consciousness Time-Shifted? 47
  • To Be or Not to Be Conscious 49
  • Out of Control 51
  • Is Consciousness a Question of Being in the Spotlight? 53
  • Models Are Not Reality 54
  • The Hard Question of Consciousness 55
  • The Social Brain 56
  • Chapter Three 63
  • The Billion Dollar Question 63
  • Dopamine: Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll? 65
  • Oxytocin: Humans Need Humans 67
  • Does Your Family Suffer from Technoference? 69
  • Being Able to Defer Gratification Is Crucial 72
  • What We Actually Do Know about Impulse Control—and About Losing It! 74
  • Do Smartphones Affect Human Self-Control? 76
  • Chapter Four 80
  • The Human Information Factory 82
  • The Limited Working Memory 82
  • The Sorting Task 83
  • Information Processing 84
  • Would You Dare to Be a Passenger in a Car Driven by a Distracted You? 86
  • Excuse Me, Do You Have a Minute? 87
  • Smartphones and Feelings 88
  • A Quick Pit-Stop before Heading into the Land of Dragons 89
  • Chapter Five 95
  • One Great Big Online Market 95
  • B.J. Fogg and the Stanford Persuasion Lab 96
  • Let’s Take a Look at B.J. Fogg’s Model as It Is Being Used Today… 98
  • Your Phone Is a Slot Machine! 101
  • What Do the Companies Targeting You See? 103
  • Your Personality Can Be Predicted with Great Accuracy 107
  • The Cambridge Analytica Scandal 109
  • How You Are Captured and Converted 111
  • Multivariate Testing—Helping Consumers Capture Themselves 113
  • The Strange World of Tracking Pixels, Cookies and Remarketing 115
  • All aboard the Consumer Journey Train 118
  • The Horrible Dark Patterns 120
  • How Google Skews Your Search Results 121
  • Chapter Six 125
  • Stress, Low Self-Esteem, Anxiety and Sleep Disturbances 126
  • Smartphones and Social Media Can Lead to ADHD in Adolescents 128
  • Can Use of Social Media Be Addictive? 128
  • When Addictive Design and Basic Human Social Traits Clash 130
  • The Effects Are Not Just Physiological or Psychological 132
  • Echo Chambers and Confirmation Bias 133
  • When Confirmation Bias Leads to Cognitive Dissonance 138
  • The Sharp Decline in Empathy 141
  • The Changing World of Youngsters 144
  • Cyberbullying 146
  • In Conclusion: The Road Ahead Is All About the Choices You Make! 148
  • Chapter Seven 157
  • Making Changes Is Not Easy! 157
  • Change Means Doing Things Differently 159
  • Step 1: Life Stories 160
  • Step 2: Mapping out Your Habits and How You Spend Your Time 164
  • Step 3: Identify Triggers & Cues 164
  • Step 4: Plan Your Countermove and Start Acting 167
  • Troubleshoot Failure 169
  • In Summary: It’s Not Rocket Science, but it’s Not All That Easy Either 170
  • Teaching Your Children Sensible and Healthy Digital Habits 172
  • The Underlying Psychological Principles 174
  • Entering the Zone—Learning to Focus 177
  • Deliberate Practice 179
  • In Conclusion: It’s Simple, but it’s Not Easy 182
  • Epilogue 187
  • Index 193

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