Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability

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Summary: Luddite rantings
Review: Bowers is a Luddite. His book is a badly researched rant. He thinks that computers are to blame for every evil under the sun. He talks of our coming ecological Armageddon as if computers were the only thing in the world that polluted. Apparently the internal combustion engine had little to do with air pollution in the 20th century (he also fails to acknowledge that computers have helped develop a host of environmental improvements. Cars built today emit a small fraction of the pollutants of cars built only 30 years ago). He also displays some barely veiled racism in his condescending attitude towards non-industrial societies. He discusses at length the disadvantages that spreading technology will bring to non-European societies. Nowhere does he ask the question of whether those societies ought to have a choice. The omniscient Bowers knows what is best for the funny little wogs in India or Brazil, and modernity isn't it. This is almost as condescending as his assertion that the idea of the individual is a European one because, he claims, the pronoun "I" doesn't exist outside European languages (see page 34-I did a little informal research with multi-lingual friends and Indonesian, Javanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian, Mandarin and Balinese all have personal pronouns). Another of Bowers' rants is typical. He criticizes an elementary school story writing program because it allows students to create settings that aren't ecologically sound, such as a palm tree on an iceberg. Apparently Bowers does not realize that pens can create stories with fantastic settings and have been doing so for a lot longer that computers. What I find most objectionable about his criticism of the writing program is that it doesn't occur to Bowers that encouraging children to stretch their imaginations is actually a good thing. If a student might have the opportunity for a momentary thought that contradicts Bowers' rigid view of reality then that is something to fear and oppose. Apparently, students should all march in lockstep with Bower's ideas of reintroducing the ecologically sustainable medieval society that is the answer to all our problems. This book was required reading for me in a secondary education class. I am offended that this tripe was considered worthy of study.

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Summary: Technology is an addictive drug...
Review: Bowers' work is an excellent argument for careful reconsideration of "pushing" computing tools as a panacea. I was especially struck by hi intimation that technology is like a drug that causes addiction. Books of this type should be required reading for a variety of policymakers, and this particular book makes the issue of 'tech addiction" easy to understand.

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Summary: A social analysis of the computer's effects on life
Review: How do computers affect such diverse social issues as cultural diversity, educational quality and ecological systems? Let Them Eat Data provides a social analysis of the computer's effects on life, considering how computer-enforced cultural patterns contribute to global ecological problems. A unique, involving probe of some unusual effects of the new computer world.

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Summary: Informative, insightful, & thought-provoking
Review: In Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, And The Prospects Of Ecological Sustainability, C.A. Bowers discusses the issues that arise from the gap between common perceptions and the realities of global computing. These issues include the misuse use of the theory of evolution to justify and legitimate the global spread of computers. Bowers also covers the ecological and cultural implications of unmooring knowledge from its local contexts as it is digitized, commodified, and packaged for global consumption. Let Them Eat Data is informative, insightful, thought-provoking, and highly recommended reading for those with an interest in how the computer and the Internet are influencing popular culture, education, as well as creation and dissemination of information.