The End of Patience: Cautionary Notes on the Information Revolution

Shenk, author of the celebrated Data Smog, articulates further uneasiness with the information age in this collection of provocative punditry originally written for National Public Radio and publications ranging the information superhighway from Wired to Feed. There is, to be sure, much in the new hyper-faster-go-go-go dial-up culture to wear down one's patience. Shenk is fed up with Microsoft, the recent consolidation of corporation and academy, carbon-copy Howard Sterns and the paparazzi in all of us. But, even as he asserts the benefits of patience and the ability to pay sustained attention, Shenk is no Luddite ready to shack up in the mountains with his Smith-Corona far from his modem. He actually likes the digital age--so long as it is kept in perspective: ""As the Web becomes integrated into the fabric of our lives--mostly to our great benefit--we should employ hyperlinking as a useful tool, but be careful not to let it govern the way we think."" Though, as a collection of previously published pieces, the book lacks the coherence of Data Smog, Shenk's sentences are witty, often savagely funny. These essays, many of which are shorter than three pages, are entertaining, even if, in their brevity, they do not demand the patience that Shenk argues is such a virtue. (Sept.)