Daily life is connected life, its rhythms driven by email, text messages, tweets and Facebook updates. Some worry that this new environment makes us isolated and lonely. But in Networked, Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman show how the large, loosely knit social circles of networked individuals expand opportunities for learning, problem solving, decision making and personal interaction. The new social operating system of “networked individualism” liberates us from the restrictions of tightly knit groups; it also requires us to develop networking skills and strategies, work on maintaining ties, and balance multiple overlapping networks.

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• “Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman have combined forces to become the new Marshall McLuhan!”
  
  Vint Cerf
  internet pioneer

• “...Lee Rainie, and his co-author Barry Wellman build on that analysis to explain what we already know about technology’s impact on our lives, what we can see coming, and where the biggest surprises and uncertainties still lie.”
  
  James Fallows
  The Atlantic

• “Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman have woven three enormous changes in the ways we connect – the spread of the internet, mobile tools, and social media – into a single clarifying story of our present and future life in the 21st century.”
  
  Clay Shirky
  author

• “Just as I would not let my child loose in traffic before I taught her to look both ways, if it were up to me, nobody would be let loose online until they read Networked.”
  
  Howard Rheingold,
  critic and author

• “This is a well-documented, well-thought, clearly written text that will become indispensable reading for professionals and students alike.”
  
  Manuel Castells
  University of Southern California

• “This book – by two leading authorities – should be required reading for courses on the Internet, new media, and society.”
  
  William Dutton
  University of Oxford

• “With flair, and a dash of wry humor, they provide keen insight about how this phenomenon affects all aspects of our lives. Anyone looking to gain deeper understanding about today’s social world should read this book.”
  
  James E. Katz
  Rutgers University

• “It’s easy to find rigorous science, and it’s easy to find topical stuff, but it’s not easy to find both at the same time!”
  
  Shankar Vedantam
  NPR Science