I loved this book. The first few chapters seemed rather episodic, although they dealt with things I personally have affection for. But in the second part the author begins to discuss why technological advances are not always improvements, and why the hopes for technological solutions to problems in education or industry are so often disappointed. Apparently even the digital gods of Silicon Valley are waking up to the fact that some things can simply be done better the old way. Quite a few big companies have even discovered that human-free algorithms are not all that good at predicting what people want to buy.

Cue "Hallelujah Chorus". Maybe there's hope.

As the author writes in conclusion, nobody is advocating a return to a digital-free world. There are some things that computer technology has vastly improved and it would be absurd to turn our backs on those improvements. But the idea that everything can be done better digitally and therefore analog technologies such as vinyl records and printed books are destined to disappear has proved to be wrong. We're starting to understand that as analog creatures, we often function best in an analog context.