KENNETH GOLDSMITH WANTS YOU TO RETHINK THE INTERNET . . .
Many people feel guilty after spending hours watching cat videos or clicking link after link after link. But renowned conceptual artist and poet Kenneth Goldsmith sees that wasted time differently. Unlike old media, the Internet demands active engagementand its actually making us more social, more creative, even more productive.
When Goldsmith introduced a class at the University of Pennsylvania called Wasting Time on the Internet, he nearly broke the Internet. The New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Slate, Vice, Time, CNN, The Telegraph, and many more ran articles expressing shock, dismay, and, ultimately, curiosity. Goldsmiths ideas struck a nerve because they are brilliantly subversiveand endlessly shareable.
In Wasting Time on the Internet, Goldsmith expands on his provocative insights, contending that our digital lives are remaking human experience. When were wasting time, were actually creating a culture of collaboration. Were reading and writing moreand quite differently. And were turning concepts of authority and authenticity upside down. The Internet puts us in a state between deep focus and subconscious flow, a state that Goldsmith argues is ideal for creativity. Where that creativity takes us will be one of the stories of the twenty-first century.