New York Review of Books. “We Are Hopelessly Hooked,” by Jacob Weisberg. Review of four books on the impact of digital devices are having on how we think and behave. Favorite lines are from a section on trolls:
“We can’t just deal with the emotional toll of brutality on the Web by toughening up. We need a Web that is less corrosive to our humanity.”
Mind Hacks blog. “A quartet of complementary brain books.” Four must-read books on neuroscience for the lay person. On Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience:
It tackles several areas as examples of where these fallacies [about cognitive neuroscience] are having a significant effect: neuromarketing, neurolaw, lie detection, addiction and the brain-disease fallacy.
The Lancet Psychiatry. “The silence of Prozac,” by Katherine Sharpe. Essay on the cultural history of Prozac that touches on Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation, Peter Kramer’s Listening to Prozac, and fictional representations of SSRI’s in Douglas Coupland’s Generation X and Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings. Favorite line:
“This is antidepressants as most who know them know them now: helpful sometimes, imperfect certainly, often a pain, yet mercifully there if you need them.”