This week I finished three books from some great authors. One book is about the power and importance of regret and another is one of my favorite books that I gave a third read. But, we start the list with a book about why social media is bad, and it didn’t live up to the hype. Enjoy!
Each of the links to the books are affiliate links, so if you use my link to purchase any of these books, some comes back to support what I do (and it also helps fund my reading habit).
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier
Everyone recommends this book, and I never grabbed a copy because I figured it’d be like the endless amount of books out there that say “social media bad”. But, the library had a copy, and it’s a short book, so I decided to give it a read. And I was 1000% right with my assumption about this book.
This isn’t a terrible book if you’ve been living under a rock and didn’t know how social media works and why it’s not run by kind-hearted altruistic people. Jaron Lanier brings nothing new to the table, and I think this book is way overhyped for what it is. It seems like the public really loves when tech people write books about why tech is bad. It’s an easy recipe for a bestseller.
Aside from not really saying anything new, the author spouts a bunch of conventional wisdom about social media and cites studies that have been debunked. My main issue with these books is that aside from being scientifically inaccurate, they’re basically making the argument that humans are mindless beings with no free will. It’s as though an ad pops up in your face and you have no choice but to buy whatever you see because it’s targeted and you’ll do this until the point of bankruptcy.
If you didn’t know social media is bad for you, feel free to read this book. But at the end of the day, I guarantee 90% of the people who read books like this are still using social media just as much but feel like they’re “doing something” by reading books like this.
The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward by Daniel Pink
I got an early copy of this book but didn’t have a chance to read it until now. Daniel Pink is one of the most popular non-fiction authors, but I haven’t really loved any of his other books. That is, until this one. This is a fantastic book, and I’m super glad that a ton of people have already read it. But if you haven’t read it yet, you need to.
Daniel starts the book in such a great way, which is by pointing out how silly people are who live with this “no regret” attitude. The reality is that we all have regrets, and that’s not a bad thing. Regret helps us grow and learn from our mistakes. In addition to doing a ton of research and citing a bunch of studies, Dan ran a massive regret survey and includes a ton of regrets from his thousands of respondents throughout the book, which makes the book even more interesting.
Regardless of who you are, I guarantee you’ll walk away from this book with some better outlooks on regret and strategies for your life moving forward.
Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer by Duncan Watts
This is my 3rd time reading this book, and I’ll be reading it again in the future. This is a great book that I always come back to that helps me remember how random the world is. This book is about how all of our common sense is often wrong and we use terrible logic and reasoning when explaining outcomes and making predictions.
Personally, I decided to read this book again because I’ve started a new project, and it’s going extremely well. But this book helps me remember how little is in my control and a major aspect of success is luck. So, when things inevitably slow down or I don’t get the results I’m looking for, this book reminds me that there’s a lot of randomness involved, and all I can do is continue to push forward and do the best I can.
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I read the Watts book many years ago and often think of it, brilliant book.