Keep Calm and Log On: Your Handbook for Surviving the Digital Revolution

by Gillian "Gus" Andrews

Overview

How to survive the digital revolution without getting trampled: your guide to online mindfulness, digital self-empowerment, cybersecurity, creepy ads, trustworthy information, and more.

Feeling overwhelmed by an avalanche of online content? Anxious about identity theft? Unsettled by the proliferation of fake news? Welcome to the digital revolution. Wait—wasn't the digital revolution supposed to make our lives better? It was going to be fun and put the world at our fingertips. What happened? Keep Calm and Log On is a survival handbook that will help you achieve online mindfulness and overcome online helplessness—the feeling that tech is out of your control—with tips for handling cybersecurity, creepy ads, untrustworthy information, and much more.

Taking a cue from the famous World War II morale-boosting slogan (“Keep Calm and Carry On”), Gus Andrews shows us how to adapt the techniques our ancestors used to survive hard times, so we can live our best lives online. She explains why media and technology stress us out, and offers empowering tools for coping. Mindfulness practices can help us stay calm and conserve our attention purposefully. Andrews shares the secret of understanding our own opinions'' “family trees” in order to identify misleading “fake news.” She provides tools for unplugging occasionally, overcoming feelings that we are “bad at technology,” and taking charge of our security and privacy. Andrews explains how social media algorithms keep us from information we need and why “creepy ads” seem to follow us online. Most importantly, she urges us to work to rebuild the trust in our communities that the internet has broken.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262538763
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	04/28/2020
Series:	The MIT Press
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	1,073,603
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gillian “Gus” Andrews, EdD, is a public educator, researcher, and digital security trainer. She produced The Media Show, a media literacy series on YouTube.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Surviving the Digital Revolution xiii

I Keeping Calm

1 No One Is Born "Good at Technology" 1

2 Look for the Helpers: A Tradition in Times of Disaster 13

3 Conserving a Valuable Resource: Our Attention 33

4 Conversation Breakdown: How the Internet Meddles in Our Relationships 53

II Staying Secure

5 Planning Your Digital Security "Victory Garden" 77

6 Growing Your Digital Security "Victory Garden" 99

7 "They Already Know Everything … and There's Nothing I Can Do" 117

8 Safer Relationships, Online 135

III Conserving and Rebuilding Trust

9 The Roots of Trust 157

10 Trust and Our Opinions' Family Trees 169

11 Bias? We've All Got It 185

12 In Writing We Trust? Seals, Signatures, and Testimonies 203

13 A Toolkit for Online Trust 213

IV Why Trust the System?

14 Professions: Trust in Special Knowledge 233

15 Books 251

16 The News 263

17 Wikipedia 281

18 Algorithms, or Digital "Soup" Recipes 289

19 Beware the Profit Motive 307

20 Going Forward … 325

Notes 331

Index 345

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A refreshing, accessible, and informative primer for the digital revolution.

—Meredith Broussard, author of Artificial Unintelligence

Supremely readable and engaging. This book is sure to help readers be more strategic, intentional, and secure in all aspects of their digital lives.

—Renee Hobbs, Professor, Harrington School of Communication and Media, University of Rhode Island

Empowering, practical, and profound, Andrews has written the survival manual for our age.

—Finn Brunton, Associate Professor, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU; author of Digital Cash

Keep Calm and Log On is a fine collection of digital age skills we all need to equip ourselves with in order to survive and thrive in a world swimming with information.

—Dan Gillmor, Cofounder, ASU News Co/Lab, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University

Keep Calm and Log On is pragmatic in its approach, offering appropriate solutions for the problems of contemporary digital media. It is exceptionally valuable.

—Robert W. Gehl, Fulbright Canada Research Chair of Communication, Media, and Film, University of Calgary

Editorial Reviews

03/09/2020

Though presented as a how-to manual on safe computer and smartphone use targeted to older, tech-phobic users, this essential crash course also has useful guidance on media literacy and critical thinking. Andrews, producer of the YouTube series The Media Show, believes that technological advances, combined with distrust in information and authorities, have overwhelmed users into a “learned helplessness” and made them more susceptible to manipulation. Discussing how to manage one’s exposure to digital media and to meaningfully evaluate information, she uses photos from the Great Depression, World Wars I and II, and other historical events as examples of times when communities had to pull together, as she believes everyone must do now in the face of technological change. There is practical, technical help in these pages about online privacy, with details on how to create strong passwords and interact with others safely online, as well as tools to help readers fact-check information encountered online and understand what kinds of intellectual authority professional qualifications do and don’t confer. This should be required reading for both admitted luddites and longtime digital denizens. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Though presented as a how-to manual on safe computer and smartphone use targeted to older, tech-phobic users, this essential crash course also has useful guidance on media literacy and critical thinking. Andrews, producer of the YouTube series The Media Show, believes that technological advances, combined with distrust in information and authorities, have overwhelmed users into a “learned helplessness” and made them more susceptible to manipulation. Discussing how to manage one's exposure to digital media and to meaningfully evaluate information, she uses photos from the Great Depression, World Wars I and II, and other historical events as examples of times when communities had to pull together, as she believes everyone must do now in the face of technological change. There is practical, technical help in these pages about online privacy, with details on how to create strong passwords and interact with others safely online, as well as a tools to help readers fact-check information encountered online and understand what kinds of intellectual authority professional qualifications do and don't confer. This should be required reading for both admitted luddites and longtime digital denizens.—Publishers Weekly—

From the Publisher