Me and My Big Ideas: Counterculture, Social Media, and the Future

by Lee Felsenstein

The history of social media, its interaction with the personal computer world, and its possible future are the subjects of this book. Its author was there at every step and tells his story from an overview perspective, starting with the 1964 Free Speech Movement on the Berkeley campus and proceeding through the counterculture that grew out of it to the personal computer milieu and beyond. Along the way he explains the theories that he developed from the experience. This book is about ideas - ideas that led to the development of the digital world we now inhabit, and the ideas that can lead us on to being much more than "livestock in an information feedlot". The final section of the book is a tutorial for designers of the future, laying out the facts and concepts that can lead out of the silo-infested, algorithm-driven social media world of today to much better possibilities.

228 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 22, 2024

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoir by the guy who designed the Osborne computer and a lot more. His life and work dovetailed with the free speech movement in Berkeley and his engineering education; he built machines and processes that helped the FSM, and at the same time worked for some major electronics/computer firms. A thoughtful work, with stories of lots of other people in the movement. A tad disappointing in that he doesn't discuss the Osborne in any detail, or even pretty much at all. Still, a different view into the personal computer revolution.