Networked

It's easy to find rigorous science, and it's easy to find topical stuff, but it's not easy to find both at the same time!

Shankar Vedantam

NPR Science

Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman have combined forces to become the new Marshall McLuhan! They draw on years of observation to weave the threads of the online and offline worlds into a deeply colored tapestry. We can see emergent social norms arising from their moving stories and insightful analyses.

Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer

Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman have woven three enormous changes in the ways we connect—the spread of the internet, mobile tools, and social media—into a single clarifying story of our present and future life in the 21st century.

Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes Everybody

Just as I would not let my child loose in traffic before I taught her to look both ways, if it were up to me, nobody would be let loose online until they read Networked. From the stories of real people whose lives have been changed, often for the better, by their interactions with contemporary online social networks, to the sociological and psychological theories that explain how life is really changing in the age of 'networked individualism,' this is a must-read manual for life online today.

Howard Rheingold, critic and author of Net Smart, Tools for Thought, The Virtual Community, and Smart Mobs

The Pew Internet Project has been part of America's tech landscape for nearly as long as Google has, and five years longer than Facebook. Through that time it has earned respect and attention for its careful, systematic studies of the ways in which networked connectivity is changing some daily patterns of commercial, educational, and social interactions—and the other long-standing human patterns it had reinforced. In Networked, the Project's leader, Lee Rainie, and his co-author Barry Wellman, build on that analysis to explain what we already know about technology's impact on our lives, what we can see coming, and where the biggest surprises and uncertainties still lie.

James Fallows, national correspondent and technology analyst for The Atlantic

We live in a network society. This book explains why, how, and what, on the basis of empirical evidence and rigorous analysis. This is a well-documented, well-thought, clearly written text that will become indispensable reading for professionals and students alike.

Manuel Castells, Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society, University of Southern California

Networked illuminates how search, social networking, and the always on connectivity of mobile devices are combining to transform the social role of the Internet. This book—by two leading authorities—should be required reading for courses on the Internet, new media, and society.

William Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

Deftly slicing through hyperbole about the communication, internet and mobile revolutions, the authors bring us face-to-face with the wellspring of modern life: the networked individual. With flair, and a dash of wry humor, they provide keen insight about how this phenomenon affects all aspects of our lives. Anyone looking to gain deeper understanding about today's social world should read this book.

James E Katz, Director, Center for Mobile Communication Studies, Rutgers University

From their rich history of research on the interconnected evolution of social networks, the internet, and mobile phones, Rainie and Wellman have assembled a cornucopia of facts and implications about work, family, and life in the new era of 'networked individualism.' When the next person asks me to talk about the network implications of social media, this is the book to which I will send them.

Ronald S. Burt, Professor of Sociology and Strategy, School of Business, University of Chicago; author of Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition

Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman write a remarkably approachable, nuanced, and clear-written treatise on how social networks, the Internet, and mobile technology are changing the way we live our daily lives.

Ate Poorthuis

Journal of Regional Science

Networked provides an engaging and accessible overview of the ways in which social networks, the Internet, and mobile technologies have converged to affect everyday lives.

Vanessa P. Dennen

Educational Technology