Howard Rheingold

Interview

• "Internet and education: the need for the individual to think critically" (California USA, 15/11/97)

Biography

Born in Arizona, Rheingold (http://www.rheingold.com ) is fifty years old, and studied the psychology of knowledge at Reed College, State University of New York.

He has always been interested in the power of the human mind, and has specialised in the exploration of the space where the mind meets technology, analysing the computer as an extension of the mind. Tools for Thought (1984), which Rheingold describes as an exercise in retrospective futurism, is from this period. Written in the early '80s it attempted to imagine the late 1990s. The book is also available on-line (http://www.rheingold.com/texts/ )

Since 1985 he has participated in an on-line conference system, an exchange of views within a virtual community, covering themes as diverse as technology, society, culture, literature and the future. This led him to reflect on the role of the Internet, which Rheingold describes as a new communal space which derives from a society in transition and which replaces traditional meeting places. On the Internet anyone can express their opinion, without class, racial or gender discrimination. The Internet, he stresses, creates a sense of virtual community among those who express themselves through it.

This experience has led to numerous writings on the cultural and political implication of the new communication technologies. Virtual Reality and the following The Virtual Community (http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/index.html ) enjoyed international success and have been translated into several languages, including Italian (published by Baskerville and Sperling and Kupfer respectively). Rheingold was the editor of The Whole Earth Review, and editor-in-chief (http://www.well.net/mwec ) of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog. In 1994 he was one of the founders and is executive director of HotWired (http://www.hotwired.com/ ), the on-line publication launched by Wired magazine.  He was also one of the founders of Electric Minds (http://www.minds.com ), a website judged by Time Magazine as among the top ten of 1996.

He is both observer and designer of new technologies, and has been called a pioneer, a critic and a prophet of the impact of new technologies. Frequently invited to speak on radio and television, Rheingold has participated in numerous international conferences, and has spoken on the social and economic implications of new technologies in cities throughout the world, including: San Francisco, Atlanta, Bangkok, Cambridge, Tokyo, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, London. He has published numerous articles and essays on the Internet, technology and education, on democracy and technology.

Bibliography

He is the author of numerous books, including:

• The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, 1994, Harper San Francisco.
• The Virtual Community: Homesteading at the Electronic Frontier, 1993, A William Patrick Book, Addison-Wesley.
• Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, (with Stephen LaBerge).
• Virtual Reality, 1991, Summit.
• Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind, 1988, William Morrow.
• They Have a Word For It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases, Tarcher, 1988.
• The Cognitive Connection: Thought and Language in Man and Machine, (with Howard Levine), 1986.
• Tools for Thought, 1985, Simon & Schuster.
• Higher Creativity, (with Willis Harman), 1984.
• Talking Tech: A Conversational Guide to Science and Technology, (with Howard Levine), 1982.
• New Technology Coloring Book, (with Rita Aero and Scott Bartlett).