Books

Once upon a time… humans spoke directly to one another, made eye contact, and touched. Children played outside, climbing trees and jumping rope…. But in the last few short decades, a profound shift has occurred, when, like the young girl in the classic fable of The Red Shoes, we traded our handmade shoes (self-governed existence) for the perceived ease and convenience offered by the glittering red shoes of technology—leading us into the throes of addiction, physical and mental degeneration and enslavement. Trapped in our metaphorical red shoes we are dancing with the devil, out of control and towards our early, painful deaths.

Using the Red Shoes allegorical tale as backdrop to the author’s deep dive into our current state of unconscious and unfettered tech use, investigative journalist Shannon Rowan weaves the many interrelated threads of the myriad ways in which the internet and our internet-connected mobile tech seduces, harms and ultimately sucks the life out of we, the many users; from social media, to gaming, to email and texting, online shopping, porn, news, entertainment… all of these threads make up the many tangled strands of the Web in which humanity finds itself currently trapped, the inter-Net, World Wide Web, with virtual and augmented reality on the near horizon, set to even more dramatically alter our world and societies, perception of reality and perhaps even reality itself …

Blending personal stories, poetry, psychology, science and philosophy, this is a book you will not want to miss. It is not just for the more obviously entranced and addicted among us, but for everyone. It is time we collectively take a giant step back, start making conscious choices about our technology use, and remove the red shoes before it is too late—and Rowan provides invaluable insights into just how we can do this.