Books 

Technology is Not the Problem is published by Harper Collins in May 2024. You can find it on Amazon or at local bookshops.

We already know how much of our data is collected and used to profile and target us. The real question is why, knowing all this, do we keep going back for more? 

Technology has delivered a world that we expect to revolve around us, our needs and preferences, and our unique personalities. Ours is the Personalised Century, where we view ourselves primarily in terms of what rather than who we are – identity, not agency – the objects of others’ recognition, rather than the subjects and authors of our own lives. That we keep handing ourselves over to technology is not a sign of its supernatural powers, but of our own shrinking sense of self.

Interrogating the historical currents that have brought us here, the book envisages a messier, riskier and less comfortable world than the one we’re sliding towards. Challenging readers to see what’s missing from their personalised menus, Technology Is Not The Problem encourages us to look afresh at the familiar: not just the technology we use every day, but how we relate to the world and those around us.

Big Data: Does Size Matter? was published by Bloomsbury in 2016 (revised paperback in 2017) and is also available on Amazon and local bookshops.

Starting with the basics – what IS data? And what makes it big? – the book takes you on a whirlwind tour of how people are using big data today: from science to smart cities, business to politics, self-quantification to the Internet of Things. 

It asks the big questions about where data is taking us; is it too big for its boots, or does it think too small? Are you a data point or a human being? Will this book be full of rhetorical questions?

No. It also contains puns, asides, unlikely stories and engaging people, inspiring feats and thought-provoking dilemmas. Leaving you armed and ready to decide what you think about one of the decade’s big ideas.

Journalism

Since winning my first laptop in the Independent’s Column-writing competition, I have written for print and online publications from Men’s Health to Statistics journal Significance, via Motorcycle magazines and BBC Science Focus, Newsweek and the New Statesman, the Telegraph, Times and Guardian, and many more. Here’s me as the Spirit of Motoring Future – my predictions holding up quite well!

I now chair the editorial board for Significance magazine – and no, I can’t fast track your article on data into the next edition.

Substack – subscribe here for my news and latest writing.

For writing enquiries please contact Will Francis at Janklow Nesbit.