Offline

Acknowledgments xi
 
Introduction: Offline 1
 
Are You Being Digitally Manipulated? 5
 
Access to Your Attention Has Become a Commodity 8
 
Technology Is Good. But Use it Carefully! 10
 
HowThis Book Is Structured 15
 
Chapter One 17
 
A Tsunami of Technological Transformation 17
 
Imperceptible Change 19
 
Because Your Eyeballs Are Worth It 21
 
Social Media: The Global Village 23
 
Tackling the Onslaught of Information 26
 
Chapter Two 30
 
A Fire upon the Deep 30
 
Developing Bigger Brains Was an Evolutionary Gamble 31
 
The Three Layers of Your Brain 33
 
Prefiltering and Neuroplasticity: Your Adaptable Brain 45
 
Is Your Consciousness Time-Shifted? 47
 
To Be or Not to Be Conscious 49
 
Out of Control 51
 
Is Consciousness a Question of Being in the Spotlight? 53
 
Models Are Not Reality 54
 
The Hard Question of Consciousness 55
 
The Social Brain 56
 
Chapter Three 63
 
The Billion Dollar Question 63
 
Dopamine: Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll? 65
 
Oxytocin: Humans Need Humans 67
 
Does Your Family Suffer from Technoference? 69
 
Being Able to Defer Gratification Is Crucial 72
 
What We Actually Do Know about Impulse Control--and About Losing It! 74
 
Do Smartphones Affect Human Self-Control? 76
 
Chapter Four 80
 
The Human Information Factory 82
 
The Limited Working Memory 82
 
The Sorting Task 83
 
Information Processing 84
 
Would You Dare to Be a Passenger in a Car Driven by a Distracted You? 86
 
Excuse Me, Do You Have a Minute? 87
 
Smartphones and Feelings 88
 
A Quick Pit-Stop before Heading into the Land of Dragons 89
 
Chapter Five 95
 
One Great Big Online Market 95
 
B.J. Fogg and the Stanford Persuasion Lab 96
 
Let's Take a Look at B.J.

Dr. Imran Rashid has a rare background as both an experienced IT-entrepreneur and a qualified family physician. In Rashid's final years of medical specialisation he began to question the way health care was being delivered and whether this could be improved with the integration of current technology trends. This interest lead him through several medtech startups and a general family practice, until he was headhunted to the position he holds today, as Head of Innovation in the largest chain of private hospitals in Denmark, Aleris-Hamlet Private Hospitals. Rashid has used his multidisciplinary knowledge to describe the interaction between the human brain and the smartphone and in doing so provided simple and qualified answers to some of the burning questions in modern society surrounding the impact of technology on our health. The author is also now an independent consultant under the business name Sunddigital.dk
 
Soren Kenner is an expert in online marketing and a successful entrepreneur. In 1994, he founded Medialog, an integrated marketing agency which he later sold in what remains the largest agency deal in Denmark to this day. Soren then went on to head up McCann MRM EMEA, working with global clients such as Coca-Cola, L'oreal, Microsoft, Mastercard and Nestle. Soren has since founded and co-founded several companies, including online trading company Zecco.com (later TradeKing), online marketing agency Hello Group, Moodagent (audio-fingerprinting), Intivation (solar cells that power cell phones), Sparrow Quantum (single photon light-sources) and Concordium (foundational blockchain technology). Soren Kenner has also co-founded the "Liberal Alliance" political party in Denmark, and is an accomplished children's author.