T

here 
is 
something 
special about walking 
into 
a 
bookstore 
and 
exploring 
the 
collection. 
Though I don’t do 
it purposefully, if 
it is my first time 
there, I tend to 
follow 
a 
similar 
path through the 
store to get myself 
acquainted. 
First, 
I 
float 
toward 
the 
literature 
section and walk 
across the wall from A to Z, 
scouring through the names 
of authors both familiar and 
unknown. 
Then, 
my 
eyes 
wander to the history and 
philosophy sections, where I 
can usually find esoteric titles 
that sometimes hint more at 
the tastes of the bookstore 
employees than the interests of 
their customers.
This 
brick-and-mortar 
meandering is in stark contrast 
to 
the 
clickbait 
world 
of 
the internet. In fact, online 
retailers such as Amazon have 
vastly changed the way we 
consume books. Any product, 
for that matter, is filtered 
through the technology giant’s 
recommendation 
algorithms 
and spit back at the customer 
in the hopes of making a sale. 
What we do not often consider 
is how these algorithms are 
destroying the humanistic side 
of reading and how we share 
books with others.
The basic idea of Amazon’s 
recommendation 
engine 
is 
to predict what consumers 
may want to buy based on 
their previous search history. 
The engine seeks to create 
relationships between “objects” 
— which include users, items 
and products — and makes 
a recommendation based on 
these relationships.
For example, a relationship 
may represent a user adding 
a product to their wish list or 
giving it a five-star rating. The 
recommendation engine then 
uses these raw data to compute 
the similarity between the 
product they had just viewed 
and another product in the same 
category. The final step is to 
integrate the recommendation 
into one of Amazon’s many 
on-site or email platforms. 
Approximately 35 percent of 
Amazon’s revenue is generated 
by advertising tools such as 
the “Recommended for You” or 

“Frequently Bought Together” 
suggestions 
that 
use 
this 
algorithm to add to the average 
value of orders.
As opposed to the 
discovery that occurs 
in a bookstore, the 
Amazon algorithm is 
set up so that you only 
see what the site wants 
you to see. This is 
especially problematic 
in terms of people’s 
reading 
habits 
because you only are 
recommended 
books 
that reinforce your current 
tastes and opinions. We should 
be uncomfortable with the 
idea that a digital extension of 
ourselves, created by website 
algorithms for financial gain, 
has so much sway in how we 
think. Blurred lines now exist 
between 
our 
own 
original 
thoughts about what we might 
like and what an algorithm 
decides for us.

In many ways, the digital 
identity 
we 
simultaneously 
create 
for 
ourselves 
and 
that companies create for us 
is the same person. At the 
Code Conference 2016 — an 
invitation-only 
conference 
hosted 
by 
the 
technology 
news website Recode — the 
controversial 
entrepreneur 
Elon 
Musk 
suggested 
that 
humans in the modern age 
are 
already 
cyborgs 
who 
possess 
a 
“digital 
layer” 
above the naturally occurring 
limbic system or cortex. The 
common tropes of implanted 
chips and robotic arms pale 
in comparison to the reality 
that your smartphone holds 
the same computing power 
as the NASA computers that 
guided astronauts to the moon 
in 1969. Each person must 
decide for themselves if this 
powerful digital layer serves a 
symbiotic role or one that has 
the potential to pollute their 

independent, natural selves. It 
is also necessary to question 
who actually has control over 
this digital layer: the user or 
the corporation?
What 
algorithms 
take 
away from the modern reading 
experience 
is 
its 
crucial 
interpersonal dimensions. My 
grandfather, who has lived in 
South Africa since the 1970s, 
told me once on a hike in the 
mountains above Cape Town 
about a book titled “Cry, the 
Beloved Country” written in 
1948 by Alan Paton. The novel 
details the desperate journey 
of a village reverend from the 
countryside of South Africa 
who goes to Johannesburg to 
find his son, only to discover 
that he is charged and convicted 
for the murder of a prominent 
white man and advocate for 
racial justice. The story is 
masterful and nuanced in its 
treatment of race relations and 
reconciliation in the country, 
yet after I finished the novel, 
what I remember most are 
the 
conversations 
with 
my 
grandfather afterward about 
how it impacted him many 
years ago. I definitely would not 
have found “Cry, the Beloved 
Country” relying on Amazon’s 
online book recommendations, 
and more importantly, I would 
not 
have 
had 
this 
shared 
reading 
experience 
that 
brought my grandfather and me 
closer together.
The next time you find 
yourself in a bookstore, take 
the opportunity to slow down 
and see what’s there. If you 
are feeling really brave, you 
can ask an employee for a 
recommendation. I guarantee 
their reasoning process will not 
be based a detailed personal 
history of “likes” or “dwell 
times” (the amount of time you 
spend on a webpage before you 
click on a different item), and 
unlike an algorithm, they have 
most likely read the words on 
the pages they are about to 
endorse. Better yet, exchange 
books with a friend for free and 
pay attention to the meaningful 
conversations 
that 
follow. 
Books have a unique way of 
bringing people together that 
cannot be replicated by social 
media or technology. You only 
have to step back from your 
digital identity to see it.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman

Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
 ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND 
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

ABBIE BERRINGER | COLUMN

Your mom is cool
T

he other day, I was 
confronted 
with 
a 
shocking 
experience 
while 
working a greeter 
shift at the Mary 
Markley Residence 
Hall dining hall. It 
was the final day of 
new student move-
in, and a mother 
and her son came to 
the front door of the 
dining hall. The son 
stopped and turned 
to his mother, who 
then asked if she could come 
in and sit with him for lunch 
before she left. In a tone of pure 
annoyance and embarrassment, 
he responded with a cold, “No, 
maybe next time,” which his 
mother begrudgingly tried to 
understand. She gave him a hug, 
which he accepted with an equal 
amount of cold embarrassment 
before leaving her behind to 
enter the dining hall. Bless this 
poor woman’s heart for being 
so understanding, because all I 
could think about was the seven 
levels of “Oh, you want to see 
embarrassing” that my mother 
surely would have verbally 
whipped me with if I had ever 
been so rude to her after she 
spent her whole day helping me 
get settled into college.
So, suffice to say, at this 
point, I simply couldn’t help 
myself. As I took his Mcard to 
swipe it, I told him, “Your mom 
is cool. You should have let her 
eat with you.” His face turned 
a cool shade red before he said, 
yet again, “Maybe next time.”
For some reason, I can’t 
get this sad encounter out of 
my mind. I mean, I remember 
what it was like to be young and 

“too cool” for my parents but as 
my years as a college student 
have 
waned 
on, 
I 
have learned a very 
important 
lesson: 
My mom is definitely 
cool. You know why? 
Because 
one 
thing 
that is most definitely 
not cool is turning a 
whole load of laundry 
blue and ruining half 
of your wardrobe. It 
is also not cool to have 
to have a friend spot 
you grocery money 
when your bank account is 
overdrawn because you don’t 
know how to manage a budget.
Oh and also, my dad is cool. 
This one was a little harder 
for me to swallow personally, 
because in the most redneck, 
Budweiser T-shirt with camo 
boots way possible, my dad 
is not “cool” by Ann Arborite 
standards — But guess what? 
It is not cool to sit outside 
of Meijer with frozen tears 
streaming down your cheeks 
because you left a light on in 
your car and have no clue how 
to use jumper cables. It is also 
not cool to have a picture of 
your favorite football player 
ripped out of the wall and glass 
shatter 
everywhere 
because 
you didn’t know what a “stud” 
was.
The truth is that those of 
us with parents who invest in 
our education, help us get into 
a good school, give us every 
cent they can offer in order to 
see us succeed here and then, 
to top it all off, offer to sweat 
their butts off on a 90-degree, 
humid day to help us move into 
college, should be nothing but 
grateful because, sadly, that 

is not the reality for so many 
kids here in the United States. 
I don’t care if your mom rocks 
Crocs and gauchos or if your 
dad wears an “I’m With Stupid” 
T-shirt to drop you off. The 
fact that you have a parent 
around to embarrass you at all 
is an immense blessing that you 
should not — for one second — 
take for granted.
That’s 
not 
to 
say 
that 
everyone 
has 
the 
best 
relationship with their parents, 
I’m just pointing out that there 
are nearly 450,000 kids in the 
foster care system on any given 
day in the U.S. and, according 
to some of the most recent 
studies, fewer than 10 percent 
of them will attend college. 
If you’ve grown up in a stable 
home in a decent economic 
bracket, you have an incredible 
advantage that so many youth 
today don’t have. 
So, next time your mom or 
dad calls, pick up the phone. 
Thank them for supporting 
you throughout your life. So 
many parents worry endlessly 
about their children who are 
at college. It may seem over the 
top to you, but they’ve spent 
the last 18 years investing most 
of their lives into making sure 
you have the opportunity to 
succeed at an institution such 
as the University of Michigan 
and they would do anything 
to make sure that is a reality. 
Don’t let their investment go to 
waste and remember that even 
on her dorkiest day, your mom 
is still cool!

Modern Reading: Humanism vs Algorithm

Alexander Satola can be reached at 

apsatola@umich.edu.

HANNAH MYERS | CONTACT HANNAH AT HSMYERS@UMICH.EDU

The next time you 
find yourself in a 
bookstore, take 
the opportunity 
to slow down and 
see what’s there.

ALEXANDER SATOLA | COLUMN

E

ach 
week, 
University 
of Michigan Business 
students enrolled in the 
class Business and 
Leaders: The Positive 
Differences 
are 
required to attend 
an evening event to 
learn from visiting 
industry 
leaders 
and 
experts. 
Last 
Wednesday, students 
congregated in the 
Hill Auditorium to 
see 
Neri 
Oxman’s 
lecture, “The Krebs 
Cycle of Creativity.” Oxman 
is an architect, designer and 
associate 
professor 
at 
the 
Massachusetts 
Institute 
of 
Technology. Her work has been 
showcased at world-renowned 
institutions 
such 
as 
the 
Museum of Modern Art and the 
Smithsonian Design Museum.
As I waited for the lecture to 
start, looking at the stage where 
three big screens had been set 
up with moving black and white 
images, I wasn’t sure what to 
expect. Her photo, which had 
been posted around the Ross 
School of Business along with 
the lecture details, cut her as 
an intimidating figure — her 
makeup perfectly applied and 
her hair styled in that masterful 
“I didn’t try but it still looks 
great” kind of way I myself have 
never been able to accomplish. 
She smolders at the camera in 
a way that exudes confidence. I 
was expecting her to be like all 
the other speakers that business 
school people love: suave and 
charming, with enough humor 
to offset any possible criticism 
about being too dry.
However, when she walked 
on stage after an enthusiastic 
introduction by Business School 
Dean Scott DeRue, she was so 
unlike the image I had painted 
in my head that I had a hard 
time reconciling the Oxman I 
had seen in the posters with 
the woman on stage. She spoke 
to the audience like she was 
entertaining 
old 
friends 
in 
her living room rather than 
giving a lecture to thousands of 
strangers (many of whom were 
probably snobby intellectuals), 
and her warmth was clearly 
visible when she affectionately 
acknowledged the students who 
had attended her Q&A session 
earlier in the day.
The lecture was fascinating. 
She spoke about the work she 

does at the MIT Media Lab and 
introduced a process she calls 
the Krebs Cycle of creativity. 
She 
explained 
how 
she 
and 
her 
students 
combine 
biology, 
fashion, 
architecture, 
design 
and more in order to 
spawn fantastic and 
almost otherworldly 
creations 
based 
in 
both the real world 
and the imagination. 
She 
spoke 
of 
the 
importance of using 
the word “and” rather than 
“or” — of realizing instead of 
arguing about what discipline or 
invention is more important than 
the other, it’s more productive to 
engage with both and recognize 
the 
contributions 
that 
each 
brings to the world. Oxman 
also spoke about some of the 
many projects she’s worked on, 
including creating a structure 
for 6,500 silkworms to use as 
a base for their silk production 
and putting half a million bees 
into an artificial urban habitat.

Despite the obvious genius 
that exuded from her and her 
passion for difficult, intricate 
work, 
Oxman 
maintained 
the same level of humor and 
relatability 
with 
which 
she 
started the lecture off as she 
delved deeper into the intricacies 
of her work. She told everyone to 
not use their phones or laptops, 
laughingly saying, “It pisses 
me off.” She asked questions of 
the audience, teasing them like 
she would a close friend when 
no one knew the answer (“This 
is rudimentary information!”). 
While she did have carefully 
prepared slides, she made it clear 
she had no intention of following 
any strict plan and simply let 
her 
enthusiasm 
direct 
her 
path. During the Q&A session 
that followed her lecture, she 
sat down on the stage with 
crisscrossed legs and listened 

intently to the questions that 
audience members asked. And, 
her parting words to an audience 
filled with Business students 
when asked how students can be 
like her and produce powerful, 
creative 
work? 
“Don’t 
do 
budgets.”
Oxman’s 
lecture 
was 
profoundly organic and intimate 
in the best way possible — 
though I know that some of my 
peers, who are used to buttoned-
down men giving lectures (while 
throwing 
in 
the 
occasional 
obligatory joke, of course) were 
taken aback by her eccentricity. 
The almost uncomfortably casual 
way in which she presented her 
lecture was a direct contrast 
to the perfect image of being 
professional but affable that so 
many professors believe they 
have to exude when they present. 
Oxman 
was 
unapologetically 
unpolished. She stuttered and 
punctuated her statements with 
laughs and “ums” and “uhs,” 
and she paced and waved her 
hands around in a way that 
some would probably criticize 
as being too distracting. All of 
this only added to her charisma 
and charm; her behavior showed 
she doesn’t care about proper 
presentation decorum and her 
paramount focus was to show 
off her work on her own terms. 
This kind of candor made her 
lecture much more effective 
than any carefully timed jokes 
and seamless transition between 
slides.
To be completely honest, I 
didn’t understand much of what 
she spoke about, and I know that 
was the case for many people 
in her audience. Despite this, 
I found what I did understand 
incredible, and as I left, I was 
struck by how, for perhaps 
the first time ever, I actually 
enjoyed a science lecture. It was 
amazing to see an obviously 
brilliant, 
incredibly 
talented 
woman toss away the stuffy 
presentation guidelines set by 
professionals who believe they 
have to always present the best 
version of themselves in order 
to appeal to their audience. And 
while it’s true that appearance 
means everything in some cases, 
I prefer Oxman’s wonderfully 
disjointed 
and 
invigorating 
method of lecturing.

Neri Oxman’s electric stage presence

Oxman was 
unapologetically 
unpolished.

KRYSTAL HUR | COLUMN

KRYSTAL 
HUR

Abbie Berringer can be reached at 

abbierbe@umich.edu.

Krystal Hur can be reached at 

kryshur@umich.edu.

ALEXANDER 

SATOLA

ABBIE 

BERRINGER

