SUPERBLOOM

If a little of something is good, then more must be better, and a lot more must be much better. According to journalist and author Carr, this assumption is longstanding, straightforward, and terribly wrong—at least when applied to communications technology. The theme of his book is that social media has taken over our society with such speed that we have not been able to absorb its ramifications or develop mechanisms to effectively control it. Carr has already addressed some of these ideas in a previous book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, but here he delves more deeply. He brings together the opinions of commentators who had once applauded the rise of social media but now see it as personally dangerous and socially disastrous, and he cites a convincing body of research as well. Many young people in particular seem to have lost the capacity and willingness to engage with life beyond the screen, even as they exhibit unprecedented levels of depression, anxiety, and pessimism. Some of this is due to the addictive nature of the technology itself, but more of it comes from a failure to confront our own fears and weaknesses. Reality is difficult; the screen offers an easy escape. “That’s the trick for us humans, to sense the real world appropriately and often enough,” Carr writes. “It’s a trick we’ll need to relearn if we hope to escape imprisonment in the hyperreal.”