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The New Digital Age
Book

The New Digital Age

Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives

Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt
Vintage Books, 2013

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Overview
  • Background

Recommendation

This intelligent, articulate and far-reaching discussion addresses nearly everything in the digital world, from teen indiscretion to cyberwarfare. Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen of Google, two people who really do know how the digital revolution manifests around the world, offer many striking examples. These insiders explain digital developments, positive and negative, that most people don’t consider. In fact, several of the phenomena Schmidt and Cohen describe – such as terrorist cyberattacks and cellphone videos of crimes – are already the stuff of today’s headlines, making this required catch-up reading. getAbstract recommends this essential, accessible narrative to futurists, investors, start-ups and anyone interested in Google, the future of digital, cyberculture and globalization.

Summary

The Digital Revolution

The Internet forges historic change. When you engage with the web, you don't see its physical infrastructure nor the code that lets it function. You interact with the “flora and fauna of the Internet.” No one person or organization is in charge of the changes sweeping the world. In this historically unprecedented, ongoing event, “hundreds of millions of people” collectively create the Internet and its contents.

As early as 2025, most of the world will be connected digitally. Connections will become faster, cheaper and more functional. Everyone will have access to digital tools. “Global connectivity” will challenge existing hierarchies, forcing institutions to adapt.

How You Will Change in the Face of Connectivity

Connectivity will change who you are because it frees you to be more efficient in the physical world. For example, “Congolese fisherwomen” use their cellphones to get better prices for their fish, with less waste. Connectivity gives people access to data they can use in unprecedented ways. As you access more and newer data, you do more on your own.

In poor countries, remote villages that lack access to the developed...

About the Authors

Eric Schmidt is executive chairman of Google and a trustee of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. Jared Cohen is founder and director of Google Ideas. He wrote Children of Jihad and One Hundred Days of Silence.

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