Public Parts

How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live

By: Jeff Jarvis

Narrated by: Jeff Jarvis

Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

A visionary and optimistic thinker examines the tension between privacy and publicness that is transforming how we form communities, create identities, do business, and live our lives.

Thanks to the Internet, we now live—more and more—in public. More than 750 million people (and half of all Americans) use Facebook, where we share a billion times a day. The collective voice of Twitter echoes instantly 100 million times daily, from Tahrir Square to the Mall of America, on subjects that range from democratic reform to unfolding natural disasters to celebrity gossip. New tools let us share our photos, videos, purchases, knowledge, friendships, locations, and lives. Yet change brings fear, and many people—nostalgic for a more homogeneous mass culture and provoked by well-meaning advocates for privacy—despair that the Internet and how we share there is making us dumber, crasser, distracted, and vulnerable to threats of all kinds. But not Jeff Jarvis.

In this shibboleth-destroying book, he argues persuasively and personally that the Internet and our new sense of publicness are, in fact, doing the opposite. Jarvis travels back in time to show the amazing parallels of fear and resistance that met the advent of other innovations such as the camera and the printing press. The Internet, he argues, will change business, society, and life as profoundly as Gutenberg’s invention, shifting power from old institutions to us all.

Based on extensive interviews, Public Parts introduces us to the men and women building a new industry based on sharing. Some of them have become household name: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Eric Schmidt, and Twitter’s Evan Williams. Others may soon be recognized as the industrialists, philosophers, and designers of our future. Jarvis explores the promising ways in which the Internet and publicness allow us to collaborate on how we manufacture and market, buy and sell, organize and govern, teach and learn. He also examines the necessity as well as the limits of privacy in an effort to understand and thus protect it.

This new and open era has already profoundly disrupted economies, industries, laws, ethics, childhood, and many other facets of our daily lives. But the change has just begun. The shape of the future is not assured. The amazing new tools of publicness can be used to good ends and bad. The choices—and the responsibilities—lie with us. Jarvis makes an urgent case that the future of the Internet—what one technologist calls “the eighth continent”—requires as much protection as the physical space we share, the air we breathe, and the rights we afford one another. It is a space of the public, for the public, and by the public. It needs protection and respect from all of us. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in the wake of the uprisings in the Middle East, “If people around the world are going to come together every day online and have a safe and productive experience, we need a shared vision to guide us.” Jeff Jarvis has that vision and will be that guide.

©2011 Jeff Jarvis (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

Very informative and fun to listen to

I highly recommend this book to everyone. The information shared by Jeff in this book is applicable to everyone on the planet. I feel this book describes the shifting paradigm that is beneath our feed. Many existing institutions are being forced to cope with the way society is changing because of our hyper-connected-ness. The internet not only allows us to share and interact with one another, but it opens new opportunities for us to improve our world and our society.

In addition to the great information in this book, I learned about many great websites that I was unfamiliar with. I started using or visiting some of the sites on a regular basis.

Interesting Cut at How the Digital Age Impacts Us

Jeff Jarvis provides some real insight into how the digital age has had an impact on our lives thus far. However, he really gets you thinking about the future. The digital age is too new to know what the impact will be in 50 to 100 years. Public Parts provides some interesting food for thought on the historical perspective of disruptive communication technologies from the past and parallels these with what we might anticipate in a digital future.

Great Look into today's world

What made the experience of listening to Public Parts the most enjoyable?

I have followed Jarvis in the blogosphere for a few years now, he is an incredible writer, his thoughts in the world and how to improve things always gets my gears going. I greatly enjoyed What Would Google Do? And I highly recommend this book

What did you like best about this story?

Very extensive thoughts on the current industry and analyzation of the past

Have you listened to any of Jeff Jarvis’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Took what he learned with past books/performances and all improvements are brought to the table with this book

If you could give Public Parts a new subtitle, what would it be?

How trying to learn from past mistakes is lost on the new frontier

Good food for thought

Would you listen to Public Parts again? Why?

There are some terrific ideas in here worth considering. I don't know if I agree with all of them, but that's often the sign of a good book.

Sobering views.

Jeff Jarvis has a unique vantage point that a lot of "private" or at least less public people don't have in this increasingly "public" society. I loved WWGD, and I love this book.

Mark Kett

An important read

The piece by Jeff Jarvis is an necessary document about the world that being created right now online. The fact that i can write this review and that it will potentially have pull in how this work is viewed is a testament to the topics and arguments in this book. Audible isn't trying to tell you what to read. It instead is using a small slice of my willingness to share to pass judgement. If you are at all interested in what drives the claims of "privacy concerns" on today's digital world, please read this book.

Very thought provoking-worth a 2nd or 3rd listen.

At times I really like Jeff Jarvis and there are times he is plain annoying. (kinda describes most people - doesn't it.). Regardless, you have to respect his positions and the excellent points he makes in Public Parts. Jeff explains how much of our concept of privacy is only a recent creation and how many times living in public can improve life. He also explains some of the misplaced panic that legislators seem to think is there duty to protect us from ourselves. Lastly, Jeff explains how our Internet is a danger of being taken away from us as old media struggles to recover their lost markets and the control of society they have long enjoyed. This by no means all of the jam packed information Jeff has put in this book. If you have interest in the future of media, the Internet or your ability to be public or private please enjoy Public Parts.

A Wonderful Long Episode of This Week In Google

Jeff Jarvis has written a rhetorically tight, logically sound, and presentably quotable speech on the importance of publicness in modernity. I say speech specifically as the presentation is more persuasive than scholarly and argument is more woven than partitioned. The debate style was very continental, constantly invoking previous scholars work but without the analytically rigorous support that I would have liked. Large numbers are presented as facts provided by Internet notables rather than as the result of studies and I would have trouble trying to use the content here for more than just dinner party conversation.

Finally, the content is very now-focused. This book is neither timeless nor kind to those who've not paid attention to recent news. A better title may have been "Privacy in the Second Decade of the 21st Century".

Great analysis how the internet affects culture

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. The author does an excellent job leading the reader through a variety of detailed examples on how the 'publicness' of the internet positively affects society. Jarvis additionally goes into great detail in outlining what appropriate protection of privacy should entail in his view. The detail he provides may provide people who dismiss or fear facebook, twitter or blogs a new perspective on why these tools are so important.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Public Parts?

Jarvis' stories about sharing his prostate cancer diagnosis on his blog and all the support and helpful feedback he got from his readers and friends.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. I like to listen to a chapter at a time.

Intriguing

What made the experience of listening to Public Parts the most enjoyable?

I love how this book made me think about how i perceive Public on the Internet.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

Publicness is not evil. No one is out to get you, and being more public can actually have more benefit than harm if done with just a little thought.