Tag Archives: book review

A Super Sad True Story

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It’s Saturday night and you’re out on the town with a couple friends hoping to hit up the bar and get lucky. After working all week everyone has high spirits and can’t wait to get a jump on the nights activities. You’re all pumped up and ready to go until you arrive.  Once inside, your äppärät kindly informs you that you are the third most unattractive guy in the bar with a horrible credit rating, bad personality score, and a 120/800 “fuckability” rating. Your night is ruined. The novel Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart uses a device called an äppärät religiously. The entire world of the novel revolves around these devices. They hold everyone’s data and can be used in a number of different formats; it’s like the iPhone, but worse. In brief: the äppärät is an NSA agent’s wet dream. The use of äppäräts in this novel shows how technology has made us vulnerable and it demonstrates how such an advancement could lead to humans losing control over who we are.

 

The story takes place in New York in a time where the government of the United States is severely indebted to Chinese creditors. It’s written in a style that flips between online instant messaging and the diary of a couple living during this time via their äppäräts. The two main characters are Lenny, a 39 year old Russian who prefers to live in the past, and Eunice, a young Korean girl raised by an abusive father who is full of personal issues. The narrative begins with the two meeting in Rome and Lenny falling instantly in love with Eunice. He asks her to move in with him in Manhattan and, although Eunice hardly thinks anything of Lenny, she agrees due to family issues back home in Fort Lee. Eunice slowly develops feelings for Lenny and both are happy for a time in their mixed up world.  This changes when Eunice is introduced to Lenny’s more outgoing and attractive boss, Joshie, and begins to fall for him instead. Joshie, who is the owner of a life extension nano tech company, had nanotechnology inputted into his body to preserve his life. This is what allows him, a 70 year old, to appear younger than Lenny. Eunice has an affair with Joshie, and when she comes clean Lenny leaves the crumbling ruins of the USA for Canada, changing his name to Larry Abraham. The reader then finds out that someone has hacked into Eunice and Lenny’s private accounts and that the entire story has been published without their consent.Throughout all of the events and changes that take place in this book there is one consistent trait: everyone is always on their äppärät.

 

In the novel a äppärät functions like an iPhone on a necklace. It has all the features of a modern day phone or tablet but it can project information to other people’s devices as well. People use these devices to communicate with each other as well as rate and judge other people. The 7.5 model of the äppärät has a built in “rate me” ability; it takes all of your personal information as well as the person you are interested in and through an algorithm gives a rating based on everything from credit, to personality, to even “fuckability” (which I find very odd). All one has to do is point their äppärät at someone and it allows them access to personal information such as age, net worth, political position, and even personal photos. People become too attached to it; some even commit suicide when the äppäräts are down and left notes saying that “they couldn’t see the future without their äppärät.” After large explosions hit the city, many are more worried about their äppärät than each other. Without being connected, everyone starts to break down.

 

I believe there is such a thing as being “too connected” with technology. I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of a stranger being able to point their device at me and view most of my information with a simple tap. Not only that but it was deemed abnormal and suspicious not to have a äppärät in this world. I would say, “imagine if we lived in a world where society would judge you for not having a phone or something like an äppärät,” but we do. If unarmed without a device such as an iPhone, Black Berry or smart phone of any type, people will judge and question your actions. I do know about 2-3 people who do not own a cell phone by choice (not for financial reasons) and applaud them for it, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder why and I know I’m not the only one. Many will say that they are not one to judge if someone isn’t up to date and connected in the cyber world. But sadly deep down, we all do.

 

We’re All Going to Die (And That’s Okay)

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It has been argued (by proponents of the awesome-sounding “terror management theory”) that the most fundamental driving force behind human behaviour is the fear of death. Evolution has (perhaps uniquely) bequeathed us with the burdensome awareness of our own mortality, a knowledge that has generated entire systems devoted to extending and imbuing with meaning our nasty, brutish, and altogether short lives. We call these systems cultures, and at the heart of every culture is the desire to achieve what we know instinctively to be impossible: immortality. But what if the impossible became seemingly possible? What if humans were given reason to believe that they could, in theory, live forever? Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story provides an extended meditation on this possibility, in the particular context of a society in which technological innovation seems poised to make eternal life a reality. The verdict, unfortunately, is that we may be better off dead after all.

The events of the novel take place in a speculative, not-so-distant future where America is on the brink of collapse and so-called “äppäräti” are the all-purpose, all-knowing digital companion du jour. A series of diary entries and social media interactions reveal to the reader a burgeoning romance between middle-aged Lenny Abramov, a stereotypical New York Jew, and Eunice Park, a twenty-something SoCal product of Korean immigrants. Their relationship is predicated on Lenny’s belief that the youthful Eunice will “sustain [him] through forever” (Shteyngart 4), a belief made tangible by his work at the Post-Human Services division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, where the realization of indefinite life extension is all but a done deal. As the two mismatched lovers navigate the crumbling physical and emotional landscapes around them, they attempt to reconcile their obligations to themselves, their respective families, and each other.

What makes the story so compelling, and its implications so hard to ignore, is that its imagined future is very much rooted in the real present. Lenny’s line of work may seem far-fetched to us at the moment, but even now contemporary scientists like Aubrey de Grey (whose work Shteyngart acknowledges as an influence) claim to be hot on the trail of a cure for aging. Similarly, the modern tech-enabled health and fitness craze finds its Shteyngartian counterpart in Eunice’s social media fat-shaming of her younger sister Sally (not to mention herself), and the obsessive nutritional monitoring and regulation practiced by Lenny and his colleagues. In both fictional and real worlds, the primary goal is the same: live a little longer. The difference lies in the expected outcomes: we are all just putting off the inevitable, while those of Lenny’s ilk are convinced that death is no longer a given.

However, unlike Dr. de Grey or some of his own novel’s characters, Shteyngart seems to have both little faith in the possibility of immortality and an acute appreciation of the potential pitfalls bound to accompany such a drastic shift in existential assumptions. Especially telling is the very first thing Lenny confides to his diary, that he has resolved to never die. This frames death as a choice, much as not getting vaccinated is a choice to be sick, or not wearing a helmet while cycling is a choice to suffer head trauma. Herein lies one of the central flaws of expecting immortality: far from alleviating our already considerable existential angst, knowing we could potentially continue to exist forever would make the prospect of non-existence that much more frightening, increasing our anxiety to the fever-pitch exhibited by Lenny and other “life lovers”. Ironically, the certainty of death offers us some measure of comfort. Take that away, and the stakes rise considerably. The pressure to keep yourself alive would be almost unbearable. In any case, all psychological issues aside, the final chapter reveals that even the best-laid plans of Post-Human Services had proven futile in time. This would seem to make it pretty clear that Shteyngart views immortality as not just undesirable, but unlikely in the first place.

In Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart tackles some of life’s biggest questions, including what it means to live and die. In the end, I think Shteyngart believes that our mortality is precisely what makes us human. It gives us an edge, keeps us hungry, humble, and brave, because we know that some day, in the not-so-distant future, it will all be taken away from us.

 

Works Cited

Shteyngart, Gary. Super Sad True Love Story. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2010. Print.

1984 v2.0?

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Smartphones are to surveillance today as tele-screens were to surveillance in George Orwell’s 1984. In Nora Young’s book The Virtual Self: How Our Digital Lives Are Altering The World Around Us she writes about the tremendous amounts of self-tracking we partake in and how the vast amounts of data we generate in doing so can help us not only to understand ourselves better but also be of use to the greater good of society. However, she also highlights the dangers of over sharing our personal data online by discussing consequences such as our data being used against us, bias in data and big brother like dystopian surveillance.

Two key points that she makes in the book are that by generating so much data of ourselves through self-tracking and creating a digital persona of ourselves online we face the risk of losing touch with the reality of the physical world around us and although big data can have many positive outcomes for society in many fields, privacy and the right of ownership issues to that information are still lingering concerns that must be resolved first for that data to be truly beneficial to everyone in society.

What Young (2013) explains from the fourth chapter of the book “we need to make space for that which cannot be statistically documented: inchoate, subjective, embodied experience” (94) represents what is problematic with the online representation of the self and self-tracking in general. Aside from all privacy issues and data ownership issues associated with self-tracking and self-generated data all of the online activities we partake in from changing our Facebook profile picture to updating our Twitter feed takes away a lot of the time that could better be used to get in touch with the real physical world and people around us. Young writes about the concept of data exhaust, examples of which includes Facebook posts and profile status updates that carries no meaning for most people other than one’s closest associates. Often times whether it be on the bus or on the street people around me are immersed in their digital devices be it a smartphone or a tablet either communicating with others or documenting some part of their life.  What I observe is that they are detaching and limiting themselves from the physical world around them and living their life through a digital frame. The perfect example of being detached from the physical world is when someone is taking a picture of an event they are in such as a concert. They are not living in the real world frame of just simply experiencing the concert with their senses; rather they are documenting their experience by taking a picture or video through the phone to enjoy later. They have less time to interact with the real grounded physical world around and I believe, like the author, that they should have more space that is not documented and is a subjective and embodied experience.

Young (2013) mentions that with all the self-knowledge we have and the emergence of smart cities we may never have any flâneurs, which are “people who stroll the streets of the modern city without a goal beyond discovering the world around them” (158). This is again the result of self tracking and learning through big data. While it is convenient and useful to know our built environments intimately I feel there still is something special with the unknown, the subjective and the mysterious city. With a background in human geography I have read works of geographers of the past describing the effects of the city on one’s mentality and state of mind and I am interested in how the life would be like if we did not have any information about our surroundings at all.

Overall the book does a great job at highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of self-tracking by examining the ways that our personal data and our usage habits can be used for the good of society or the evils of corporate profit. There is no doubt that our “data maps” can provide valuable insights into how we can better our lives. At the same time we are reminded that if we immerse ourselves too deeply into the virtual world we can distance ourselves from the real world around us and lose track of reality and who we are. As the author mentions in the last two chapters of the book we are in the early stages of the digital information age and we must work hard as “data activists” to define the rules and laws that govern our data. If we fail to do so we may find ourselves in an Orwellian society.

References

Young, N. (2013). The virtual self: How our digital lives are altering the world around us. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

Book Review

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Cameron Forbes

TS 400 Book Report

The Virtual Self

Nora Young

Data Visualization: The Artistry Of Statistics

 

In her book, The Virtual Self, Nora Young looks at the increasing amount of information we are sharing online. She discusses the potential ramifications of all this information sharing. Young tries to look for a positive direction for our information-flooded society. Throughout the book Young looks at things like the self-tracking information that people share online. She breaks self-tracking into two categories. First, personal/individual self-tracking, which could be anything from taking a picture of what you had for breakfast or saying you’re going to the gym. The second category Young talks about is external tracking. External tracking is the kind of tracking that companies and governments do. Young also discusses other topics relative to big data, such as the importance of data mapping in making use of big data. Young talks about finding ways to concisely present the important information that the data reveals. Young also discusses the topic of privacy in this new “ecosystem of information”. (Young, Nora. The virtual self, pg. 161) She talks about the seemingly ever-changing privacy settings that big companies like Facebook have. Young also makes sure to mention a few of Facebooks past oversteps in their privacy settings. The Virtual Self looks at the important issues in our societies increasingly technical culture.

For my report I am going to look at how data mapping will become the most important tool in the data integration of the masses of data we are generating. Nora Young expresses in her book that we need “to find ways to make the story that data tells comprehensible.” (Young, Nora. The virtual self, pg. 139) Through “dynamic [and] interactive graphics” (Young, Nora. The virtual self, pg. 144) we will have been able to create enlightening infographics models to clearly show the importance of the given information.

In the last few years I have seen utilization of data mapping and infographic technologies, especially in sports. There is a company called Sportvu that using cameras and tracking systems that generate huge amounts of data of sports games. Sportvu right now is being used mostly by basketball and soccer. However, most of my experience in looking at their data mapping has been in basketball. Most NBA teams have adopted Sportvu. The technology essentially tracks every player’s movement, the ball’s movement, shooting percentages, and many other smaller categories. The information Sportvu generated was coveted by NBA geeks who were eager to try to utilize it with their teams. However, despite the information obvious relevance, the biggest challenge to get the NBA team to use Sportvu was getting coaches and other more hands on basketball people to utilize the technology. Many NBA coaches are quite hard-headed and set in their ways of evaluation. This is where the data mapping and infogrpahics were so important. As the massive amounts of Sportvu data was made into infographics several teams started to use the information. In a short time, many more teams were using this Sportvu technology and using its findings to influence their decisions. Currently, all 30 NBA teams are using Sportvu. To me this is an affirmation of the importance of data mapping in finding the significance in the masses of data. There are even teams that make nearly all player decisions and coaching strategies focused on the findings of this data. Although the NBA & soccer (I am not sure to what extent soccer uses this) are the first major sports to utilize big data through data visualizations I foresee this becoming a major part of how we look at sports going forward.

Although the example I presented might have been slightly long winded it shows that these massive amounts of data are already being successfully simplified and presented in a way that makes its significance easy to understand. Nora Young describes how she was explained the purpose of data visualization as “allowing you to very quickly get a sense of a lot of data”. (Young, Nora. The virtual self, pg. 145) Professional sports use of data visualization of big data is a great test of whether we can make use of all this data we are generating. Many people question whether we can actually make use of all the data we are producing. In my opinion the answer to this question is almost certainly yes. Professional sports are a highly competitive business and is not an easy first field test for the validity of data visualization. However, sports are just one area of use.

In conclusion, I believe that data visualization is the key to illuminating the vital points of information that lay deep in the sea of data that our society is generating. Young discusses many different areas of life where mass amounts of data are being generated. While many of these areas of life with big data collections are not yet comprehensible, the continued push of data visualization should facilitate our understanding the data in these other areas of life.

 

 

References

Young, Nora. The virtual self: how our digital lives are altering the world around us. Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart, 2012. Print.