Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch

BECAUSE INTERNET by Gretchen McCulloch is a unique text that deals with fluidity of language and changes in meaning, especially as we continue to produce more informal, internet-based writing. I am looking forward to sending more time with this text, reflecting, for example, on McCulloch’s comments about differences in users: “your experience of the internet and the language therein is shaped by who you were and who else was around at the time that you joined.” After a discussion of the founding population (often more “techy” and users of topic-based tools like Bulletin Board Systems, forums, or listservs), she describes the next wave as split between “Full Internet People” and “Semi Internet People,” differentiated by what they were doing on the internet (daily instant messaging and eventual Facebook users vs. forwarding funny emails). She describes a third wave, calling some “Post Internet People” who are “socially influenced by the internet regardless of their own level of use.” Much more to think about here; subsequent chapters cover emojis and memes. With roughly twenty percent of this text devoted to notes and index, McCulloch also references many researchers like dana boyd (speaker and author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens) and states that the purpose of this new book is “to provide a snapshot of a particular era and a lens that we can use to look at future changes.” 

As a linguist and pattern-seeker, McCulloch would undoubtedly be interested in the graphic detail shown about “Ageing on Facebook” and “Teenage Wasteland” recently in The Economist. Taking that a step further, she (and our students) might want to look at the NPR video on how moods spread and other non-verbal clues.  BECAUSE INTERNET was just named a Wired magazine "must read" and also reviewed in The Economist and by in Jennifer Szalai in the New York Times.  

Economics ... history and future

I promised some more non-fiction reviews and here are a few loosely tied to economics, opportunity and business history.

I had high hopes for LIFTOFF by Donovan Livingston, but it frankly read as more petulant than inspiring to me, even though it is subtitled “from the Classroom to the Stars.” Maybe that was because this was originally crafted to be a spoken verse graduation speech and therefore it conveyed a sense of yearning and need for dialogue? 

Somehow, LIFTOFF just felt like it was not directed to my teachers or students who already read and discuss The Other Wes Moore. They might honestly be more interested in the foreword Moore wrote or in his organization, BridgeEdU, which works to make college completion more attainable.  

If you wish, you can decide for yourself; here is a YouTube video link to Donovan Livingston’s speech. 

I also recently read Benjamin C. Waterhouse's THE LAND OF ENTERPRISE which is subtitled "A Business History of the United States." Waterhouse, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, is correct when he opines that we too often "relegate business to the margins of the tale" of  American history.  As a regular reader of "the daily dairy of the American dream" (The Wall Street Journal), I often reflect on business' impact on society.

This ambitious and heavily foot-noted text covers economic activity from colonial times to the present. Waterhouse gives many, many examples in 12 chapters which deal with eras from "Conquest, Colonies and Capitalism" through "Factories Come to America" to "Finance Takes Flight." In "Business Gets Big," for example, he explains how our modern negative images of big business "embody the enduring cultural power of the large corporations that emerged to dominate American business in the late 19th century," including railroads, steel and oil. Waterhouse's chapter titled "After the Industrial Economy" would pair nicely with the more specific case study in  The Glass House by Brian Alexander. In all honestly, I think the text is a bit too dense for our high school students, but college history students and business practitioners would likely be surprised by many of the details he includes.

THE FINANCIAL DIARIES by Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider is a very insightful look at "how American families cope in a world of uncertainty," arguing that it is volatility in cash flow rather than differences in income levels which contributes to inequality and difficulties with long-term financial planning.

Last Fall our students read excerpts from J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy and and I can see them also building empathy for Becky and Jeremy Moore and other Financial Diaries Households.  Morduch and Schneider describe how their team of ten researchers lived in Ohio, Kentucky, California, Mississippi, and New York while learning about cash flow for 235 households - collecting information on over 300,000 transactions between 2012 and 2013. The data is presented in numerous bar graphs and in stories with quotes like, "Work, family and church are the constants in Janice's life. And worry." Many readers will find the uncertainty and the extent of month to month fluctuations for low and lower-middle income families to be shocking. THE FINANCIAL DIARIES received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

That somewhat more scholarly text could easily complement The Unbanking of America which we have recommended to Junior Theme students. And, perhaps it would add a layer of insight to a recent Census Bureau report about The Changing Economics and Demographics Young Adulthood from 1975 to 2016.  Amongst the key findings is the degree to which young adults increasingly live with parents:

[Source: U.S. Census Bureau]