Review: Born Digital by Robert Wigley

 This is the story of Generation Z, the so-called “Digital Natives” generation. They are the first to grow up with ‘smart’ technology (eg smartphones, wireless etc) and as such have experienced a life from birth that no previous generation has. This brings both blessings and huge potential problems. 

Having written this during the pandemic, Wigley - whose CV reads like a Who’s Who of top financial and business positions - synthesises mounds of research about how living in an increasingly digital world can affect us, but specifically the generation who grew up knowing nothing else. From how using social media literally rewires  our brains, to changing job markets, and what it means to live in an attention economy, Born Digital is a hugely important book to show us how the oligarchy of tech titans is impacting our world and how we need to be better informed to navigate it. 

The book covers a huge amount - how we learn, how we date, how we empathise (or don’t), how we work, and so much more. It’s a brilliant example for the “forewarned is forearmed” concept - we won’t be likely to change the digitisation of the age but we can learn how to take our power back and make this technology work for us, rather than be exploited by it for a company’s bottom line. 

I’d say this book is important for everyone to read, but particularly the people whose age range it explores. They are, the ones, who have never known life any other way and it’s important to know that social media in particular is designed to consume them.