Next: The Future Just Happened (2012)

By 2000, hundreds of millions of people had gone online -- though few would have known what ''going online'' meant just six years earlier. In Next: The Future Just Happened -- which consists of four essays that percolate with insight -- journalist Lewis investigates the unexpected inversions of power, time, and identity that the Internet's ''vast new social world'' have wrought. He's particularly fascinated by adolescents who have gained the edge on adults, like New Jersey teen Jonathan Lebed, charged by the SEC with making a fortune by manipulating stock prices via website investment boards, and Daniel Sheldon, the 14 year old behind the legendary file sharing program Gnutella. Lewis paints the teens vividly in a sharp portrait of the way human dramas play out in the breakneck realm of technology.