Clive Thompson

“More than any other modern tool, computers are a total mystery to their users. Most people never open them up to fix them or to see how they work.”

“The only reason we don't notice how absolutely interwoven our thinking processes have become with older technologies - pencils, paper, electric light, penicillin, fire - is that they're old, so we've ceased to notice their effects.”

“Personally, I'd love to see more social media firms develop business models that aren't reliant on advertising. If you're a social media firm selling ads, your goal is to get people to interrupt what they're doing all day long so they come and stare at your service as much as possible.”

“The genius idea of industrialism was the concept of the Model T: In exchange for something cheap and well-made, we'd forgo unique, lovely design.”

“Tip-of-the-tongue syndrome is when people almost remember something but need a computer, or someone else, to help them find it. The problem is, our brains have always been terrible at remembering details. They were like that way before the Internet came along.”

“There is something about the ability to externalize our thoughts and compare them with other people in a public way that is really transformative for the average person.”

“Railing at scientists for massaging tree-ring statistics won't stop the globe from warming if the globe is actually, you know, warming.”

“The Internet lets thousands of total strangers collaborate to produce a truly hivelike result.”

“The humanitarian developers behind World of Warcraft have also discovered a way to bribe gamers into turning off their computers and going outside. If you log off for a few days, your character will be more 'rested' when you resume playing, a mode that temporarily speeds up your leveling.”

“Politicians or pundits can distort or cherry-pick climate science any way they want to try and gain temporary influence with the public. But any serious industrialist who's facing 'climate exposure' - as it's now called by money managers - cannot afford to engage in that sort of self-delusion.”

“The one complaint about the Internet that I wholeheartedly endorse is that most of these tools have been designed to peck at us like ducks: 'Hey, there's a new reply to your comment! Come look at it!'”

“Ambient awareness is the experience of knowing what's going on in the lives of other people - what they're thinking about, what they're doing, what they're looking at - by paying attention to the small stray status messages that people are putting online.”

“We're dumber and less cognitively nimble if we're not around other people - and, now, other machines.”

“Insurance firms have always carefully studied real-world data to figure out what, precisely, constitutes a risky activity.”

“The people who tend to get the most out of being social thinkers are the people who themselves are helpful. They're always talking or answering people's questions or engaging in productive conversations. They're not being trolls. They're tamping down other people that are being trolls.”

“The amount of writing that people do online is astonishing, and historically unprecedented.”