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The Folly of Technological Solutionism

Evgeny Morozov
Public Affairs, 2013

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

This ambitious, entertaining and sophisticated discussion improves upon author Evgeny Morozov’s earlier book, The Net Delusion, and features his astute take on history and an interdisciplinary embrace of human complexity. Morozov shows how those who worship technology and the “Internet” oversimplify the problems they think they are solving and, in the process, fail to honor the richness of an embodied, contextualized world. getAbstract recommends Morozov’s insights to futurists, technology enthusiasts and readers seeking a nuanced understanding of how the Internet is and is not changing the world.

Take-Aways

  • Technologists believe in the idea of “solutionism,” which holds that high tech can solve the world’s problems.
  • Solutionism reframes complex social behaviors into simple problems with clear solutions.
  • However, its facile model of people, society and motivation ignores cultural context.

About the Author

Evgeny Morozov is a contributing editor at The New Republic and author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom.

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    D. B. 9 years ago
    Books like this are essential to provide balance and perspective and mitigate the inevitable cheerleading that is endemic in technology these days.
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    A. M. 1 decade ago
    Very interesting points to think about and comprehend but the content is more devil's advocate then problem resolution.