A gentle, well-organized how-to guide to interacting with tech in a healthier way.
Vidyarthi presents a self-help book about transforming one’s relationship with technology.
Drawing on personal experience, scientific research, and mindfulness techniques, the author aims to empower readers to reclaim their attention from digital distractions while still enjoying tech’s benefits. In the “attention economy,” the author says, companies are scrambling to buy and sell one’s sense of focus, which has a major impact on one’s mental health and well-being. However, people may opt out of this situation, he says, by using his seven strategies. First, Vidyarthi suggests becoming aware of when, how, and why one engages with technology. Next, he says, one must dismantle false narratives around tech that lead to compulsive tech use, such as how social media provides validation through likes and comments. His vision of redesigning one’s digital environment involves turning off nonessential notifications, moving apps off one’s home screen, and setting time limits on certain platforms. Vidyarthi also recommends nurturing genuine connections instead of performative interactions in online and real-world settings. Boundaries regarding tech (such as just watching one show per day) invite people to emphasize quality over quantity, he writes, and creating a ritual helps them enjoy it more. Rejecting false urgency and slowing one’s pace are also key, he says. Finally, Vidyarthi advocates for choosing digital products that truly serve the user’s needs, rather than just hook their attention. Overall, this is a well-crafted and timely guide for navigating challenges of the digital age. He dedicates a surprising—yet necessary—amount of text to the effects of tech use, and how people use it to “escape discomfort and placate emotional needs.” He shares personal anecdotes, as well, effectively joining readers in the struggle for a balanced relationship with tech. By providing readers with small, realistic steps, such as disabling autofill passwords, he allows even the most tech-dependent person to create some breathing room in their life. However, more exploration of societal factors for tech use might have broadened its scope.
A gentle, well-organized how-to guide to interacting with tech in a healthier way.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781069099501
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Still Ape Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
