Infectious Generosity

Starred review from December 15, 2023
An inspiring, timely book about ways to bring out the best in people rather than focusing on the worst. We are living in an age of monetized anger, writes Anderson, who's helped launch more than 100 magazines. If we don't change course soon, the disease will be terminal. Thankfully, the author offers a remarkably straightforward remedy: Think less about commerce and more about simple, grassroots generosity. As the head of the TED organization, Anderson has lived the idea, bringing interesting and useful ideas to millions of people for free. In this uplifting book, the author examines how social media has become a maze of algorithms designed to glue people to screens in a fog of simmering resentment, unwilling to even talk to strangers, let alone help them. Yet signs of change do exist, and Anderson recounts stories of people acting generously--the hairdresser who started to give free cuts to homeless people or the anonymous donors who distributed substantial grants to help good causes. Video records of these incidents and many similar ones were circulated online; in numerous cases, people who watched them were inspired to become generous themselves, volunteering at or making a donation to a worthy organization. Anderson sees this pattern as proof that social media can be a positive force--and that many people want to be generous. He cites research showing that those who perform real-world generous acts are happier than self-centered people who live online. "Whether our collective future is a good one or not depends largely on whether the majority of people give more to the world than they take from it," he writes, continuing, "Generosity is a key ingredient for a contented life." A joyful road map away from a polarized, selfish society to the hopeful, humane place where we should be.

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February 26, 2024
Readers can utilize generosity in person and online to “turn the tide on the growing divisiveness of our world and usher in a new era of hope” according to this uplifting outing from Anderson (TED Talks), curator of TED Conferences. Generosity with money, “talent, time, creativity, connection, basic human kindness” can benefit receiver and giver, he notes; experiments have shown that those who spend money on others report higher levels of happiness than those who spend on themselves. But generosity has the power to do its most powerful work on a larger scale—namely the internet, which could transform from a “scary, inhuman mass of strangers ready to judge and exploit us,” into a “force for good” if its users behave more generously to one another, giving acts of “unremarkable human kindness” the power to “ripple out like never before.” (That can entail a company offering free education on a technical subject, or a user crowdsourcing funding for a worthy cause.) While Anderson’s tone can tend toward the Pollyannaish (he suggests asking, “What can I give to the internet?” instead of “What can I get from the internet?”), his assertion that there’s a “pathway to reclaiming a healthier Internet” includes plenty of well-supported analysis and broad-minded suggestions (an artist sharing their work, for example, is a generous act). It’s an uplifting resource for internet users looking to make a change.