Book Choice- Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom

While searching various terms such as "network society" and "information society", a lot of books caught my attention. The novels I was most interested in were Alone Together, It's Complicated, and Consent of the Networked. Alone Together is novel illustrating the effects of social media on our public interaction. It mentions that we are constantly surrounded by social media sites. I found this interesting because I have always been curious of what's happening to our generation as we become submerged in social media. It's Complicated seemed to have a similar focus, mentioning how intertwined our social lives get with having the access to so many different social media sites.

After looking at reviews and general summaries of these books, I decided to read Consent of the Networked. Not only did this book receive great reviews, but it was the one that made me think the most. Even after just reading the title I was left with so many unanswered questions. I wanted to learn more about what exactly we aren't receiving consent about, and how it may affect us in the long run.

While narrowing down my choices, I had no idea what kind of book I was looking for. I liked that we were given so much freedom with our book, and there were more books I was interested in than I thought. I decided I wanted a book relating to social media. I picked Consent of the Networked because it brought up good points. We, as users of the network society (namely the internet), have our privacy compensated nearly every day. There seems to be less and less personal freedom within the internet and while some of these incidences may seem small, some can drastically impact our lives. Censorship in network societies doesn't seem to be prioritized as much as it should.

Throughout my research, I found that Consent of the Networked could be found in the most libraries (compared to my other 2 choices) which led me to believe that it is a great read and may actually be in high demand. I'm looking forward to learning more about the grey areas of consent within various aspects of the network society.

"Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other Paperback – October 2, 2012." Amazon. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.amazon.com/Alone-Together-Expect-Technology-Other/dp/0465031463>.

"Consent of the Networked." Amazon. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.amazon.com/Consent-Networked-Worldwide-Struggle-Internet/dp/0465063756/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413263969&sr=1-1&keywords=consent+of+the+networked>.

"Consent of the Networked." Consent of the Networked. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://consentofthenetworked.com>.

"It's Complicated." Amazon. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.amazon.com/Its-Complicated-Social-Lives-Networked/dp/0300166311>.