I would say that there are really two books here, one about the future of personal identity, and the other about the relationship between personal identity and society. I wasn't too impressed with Greenfield's treatment of the first topic - it seemed to me that it was very much an outpouring of her worries about the future of society, which seemed to involve a lot of sitting in front of computers rescuing princesses from dragons. Clearly addiction to computer games and the like is a worry, but Greenfield never seems to get to the root of the problem - I felt she didn't really analyse the differences between being engrossed in a computer game and being engrossed reading a classic work of literature.

I felt Greenfield did much better on the second topic. Here she looks at different types of identity There are Somebodies, for whom personal fulfilment is important, although this might be via conspicuous consumptions, Anybodies, whose identities are subsumed into a larger collective, and Nobodies, who live only for the excitement of the moment. The book ends with a look at creativity and how it might be encouraged.

To sum up I would say that this book may well be part of a new way of thinking about individuals and society, and how neuroscience can help us in understanding them, but you shouldn't expect it to be too polished or to get too many answers from it."; include "amazinf.php"; ?>