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Superbloom: Le tecnologie di connessione ci separano?
Oltre un certo livello di efficienza, la comunicazione tende a produrre confusione più che a favorire l' non promuove l'armonia ma alimenta il conflitto.
Apprezzatissimo interprete dei modi in cui le tecnologie cambiano la vita umana, Nicholas Carr accompagna il lettore alla scoperta degli effetti perniciosi che da sempre, come un'ombra, accompagnano il progresso in questo campo. Mostra come le piattaforme di messaggistica sacrificano le sfumature, come i social network innescano dinamiche aggressive, come i dibattiti politici in rete rendono più angusti i nostri orizzonti e distorcono la percezione della realtà. Da un lato Carr chiarisce perché i giganti della tecnologia e le loro piattaforme hanno tradito le nostre aspettative, dall'altro ci obbliga a fare i conti con verità scomode sulla nostra natura. La psiche umana è male attrezzata per governare la "superfioritura" di informazione che la tecnologia ha scatenato.
Attingendo esempi memorabili dalla letteratura storica, scientifica e politica, Carr offre una visione panoramica delle ripercussioni sociali dei nuovi media. Forse è troppo tardi per cambiare il sistema, ma siamo ancora in tempo per cambiare noi stessi.
Apprezzatissimo interprete dei modi in cui le tecnologie cambiano la vita umana, Nicholas Carr accompagna il lettore alla scoperta degli effetti perniciosi che da sempre, come un'ombra, accompagnano il progresso in questo campo. Mostra come le piattaforme di messaggistica sacrificano le sfumature, come i social network innescano dinamiche aggressive, come i dibattiti politici in rete rendono più angusti i nostri orizzonti e distorcono la percezione della realtà. Da un lato Carr chiarisce perché i giganti della tecnologia e le loro piattaforme hanno tradito le nostre aspettative, dall'altro ci obbliga a fare i conti con verità scomode sulla nostra natura. La psiche umana è male attrezzata per governare la "superfioritura" di informazione che la tecnologia ha scatenato.
Attingendo esempi memorabili dalla letteratura storica, scientifica e politica, Carr offre una visione panoramica delle ripercussioni sociali dei nuovi media. Forse è troppo tardi per cambiare il sistema, ma siamo ancora in tempo per cambiare noi stessi.
329 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 30, 2025
357 people are currently reading
5922 people want to read
About the author
Nicholas Carr
20 books1,087 followersNicholas Carr is the bestselling author of several books on how technology shapes our lives and thoughts, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Shallows and the new Superbloom. His other books include The Glass Cage, Utopia Is Creepy, The Big Switch, and Does IT Matter? Former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, Nick writes for The Atlantic, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Wired, among other publications. He lives in Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 206 reviews
January 20, 2025
In Superbloom, Nicholas Carr takes a central metaphor for the way that mass communication technologies collide with human nature from the 2019 poppy #superbloom in Walker Canyon outside of Los Angeles. Initially drawing only a handful of influencers posing among the blooms, the response to the phenomenon quickly spiraled out of control, leading to descending hordes, off-trail natural spaces trampled, and a traffic officer struck by a car. Online condemnation and virtue-signaling ensued.
Returning often to this metaphor, Carr explores how digital media has rapidly achieved the opposite of its initial vision of harmony, connection, and democratization. Instead, it’s overwhelmed us with more information than our brains were made to handle, leaving us lonelier, angrier, and diminished in our ability to assess objective reality. And, Carr argues, this is nothing new. Across the age of mass media, human nature and cognition have consistently responded in surprising and not entirely positive ways to technological innovations in communication. From radio to email, we’ve generally assumed that more communication—faster, easier, more broadly available—is automatically better. However, these advances have never arrived without significant problems. The main difference when it comes to digital media is the unprecedented scale of the problems and the speed with which they’re eroding relationships, societies, and even our very humanity.
Superbloom is a compelling and fascinating book. I listened to it on audiobook, and narrator Jonathan Todd Ross does a superb job of driving the read forward with energy and understanding. That said, I’m eager to get my hands on a print or digital copy of the book, so I can give it a deeper, more focused read. This is a “thinky” book—the kind you want to spend some time with, considering the ideas it explores and making notes for further reading. And because Superbloom is relatively short (the audio clocks in at eight hours and change), a reread wouldn’t mean a huge detour from my TBR.
My thanks to NetGalley and RBmedia for providing me with a copy of Superbloom in exchange for my review.
Returning often to this metaphor, Carr explores how digital media has rapidly achieved the opposite of its initial vision of harmony, connection, and democratization. Instead, it’s overwhelmed us with more information than our brains were made to handle, leaving us lonelier, angrier, and diminished in our ability to assess objective reality. And, Carr argues, this is nothing new. Across the age of mass media, human nature and cognition have consistently responded in surprising and not entirely positive ways to technological innovations in communication. From radio to email, we’ve generally assumed that more communication—faster, easier, more broadly available—is automatically better. However, these advances have never arrived without significant problems. The main difference when it comes to digital media is the unprecedented scale of the problems and the speed with which they’re eroding relationships, societies, and even our very humanity.
Superbloom is a compelling and fascinating book. I listened to it on audiobook, and narrator Jonathan Todd Ross does a superb job of driving the read forward with energy and understanding. That said, I’m eager to get my hands on a print or digital copy of the book, so I can give it a deeper, more focused read. This is a “thinky” book—the kind you want to spend some time with, considering the ideas it explores and making notes for further reading. And because Superbloom is relatively short (the audio clocks in at eight hours and change), a reread wouldn’t mean a huge detour from my TBR.
My thanks to NetGalley and RBmedia for providing me with a copy of Superbloom in exchange for my review.
March 3, 2025
“Superbloom” is the most interesting book I’ve read over the past 12 months. There were so many good lessons in this book, that I had trouble thinking how I could write a concise review of it. So the following might be a bit long and cover a number of subjects.
This book is a history of media technology, extending back to Guttenberg and moveable type, and covering all the major milestones of technology – the telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, internet, social media and ending off with AI. It discusses how technology has shaped society and culture – vs. society shaping technology – and ultimately shows how communications is tearing our society apart, today.
The thing I liked most about the book was that it is well-reasoned and logical.
Nicholas Carr takes us on a journey through media evolution showing us specifically how we think, what we think, and what we do as a consequence. For example, the telegraph and the telephone shrank distances and created pressure to react quickly to what was communicated. In turn, this reduced the ability of diplomats to de-escalate conflicts; radio and television united people to a certain degree, allowing them to share experiences at scale, and often unifying them in their views – for better or worse.
Then the Internet changed everything by making communications instantaneous, allowing at least a second life, and in many cases a number of digital worlds. In this new "life", people could, on the one hand enjoy the abundance of riches; but on the other, be at the same time, isolated (and at the same time connected), lonely, subjected to tribal groupthink, and face hateful content. It's a mixed blessing.
Today's "Kings of Technology" - Zuckerberg, Andreessen, Gates - would love us to live more and more online, and less in the real world. I think this is a mistake. We need to spend less time in digital land and wrestle back the time we spend for the real world. This is the way to combat loneliness and to improve happiness. And it cannot be that only the rich tech guys enjoy the riches of the real world while others are relegated to the digital world. We need to fight back against this travesty.
I enjoyed the author's references to the great thinkers on media, including Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) who coined the phrase “Social Media” in the 19th Century. Cooley wrote that society shapes the individual more than the other way round. I’d not heard of Cooley before and now want to know more.
Further, I also learned more about Walter Lippmann (1889 -1974) and his argument that the world is too complicated to understand. As a result, each of us constructs a “Pseudo-environment” or a simplified version of reality. I'll have to get Lippmann's 1922 book "Public Opinion".
Each one of us has these model environments within us. Some are logical and organised while others are very far apart from reality. The upshot of this is as Anis Nin said “We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are”. While we all live in one common world, each of us sees a very different view of it.
This tells us that we need to first ask questions about how a person views the world to have an effective conversation with them. The instantaneous nature of text doesn't not make this easy.
Mass media (radio and TV) transformed society in the 20th Century. For example, the telephone domesticated communications and made it immediate and private. Radio transformed news and how society could be re-shaped and media also became political with different stations appealing to different target audiences. Radio also brought in regulation and licensing requirement after the Titanic when private radio broadcasts interfered with the rescue of its passengers. (There was “fake news” about whether it was actually sinking or not.) The mass market was also a time of uniformity and consumed socially within families.
The author correctly identifies the deregulation in the 1996 Telecommunications Act (with its famous Section 230 exemption which shielded digital firms from liability – and indeed accountability) and the 2006 introduction of Facebook News Feed, as the two main forces changing the media landscape in America and indeed the world. The 1996 act broke down the legal barriers between personal and commercial media. This is a key reason why Big Tech rarely cares about our privacy. Acts like this took away our rights and we need to force regulators to give them back. Why should the Big Tech platforms have Section 230 protection. It has just encouraged bad behaviour.
And Facebook’s News Feed agglomerated them, reducing everything into one idea – Content – no matter if it was personal, commercial, text, audio, visuals, or videos. Facebook's users became the content produces, the audience, and the product (meaning their data trail) that could be sold to advertisers.
This innovation drove “time on platform” for Facebook up and was incredible successful because more time spent meant more ads watched, and more revenue generated for Facebook. In turn this took us away from time in the real world - which is a much more empathetic place. So empathy overall has suffered since the advent of digital communications.
Social Media is disrupting norms and shaping us today. In fact, the author argues is that the latest technologies of connection are really tearing us apart. We know this but he gets into the details of how this is happening, showing how care and concern for language started to decrease when the world moved from written and typed correspondence to email - which was more direct and somehow less personal - to Instant Messaging (IM) and text - which are very direct.
Letters and formal correspondence involved a type of slow and empathetic thinking that text does not have. It is back to Daniel Kahbemans "Thinking fast and Thinking Slow". Slow thinking is more thoughtful, measured, and tends to be more accurate, while fast thinking is more reactionary, emotional, and less accurate. Yet an increasing amount of correspondence is done in email and text. The result is that we are getting less measured communications and ones that don't necessary consider the "Pseudo-Environment" that Lippmann discussed - in the other person.
It's the choice of medium to communicate that is stimulating the tribal feelings in human nature that's tearing us apart. These Pseudo Environments are coping or defence mechanisms for dealing with an oversupply of information. As such they are often areas where people will push back if they are faced with information that doesn't fit within this condensed worldview. This is a very helpful insight into Identity, Politics, and how media is fuelling polarisation today.
Another thing that was interesting was the "Sound bites" that the author captured in his writing. He had great quotes and expressions, and I made many notes along the way. A couple that stand out are Jaci Mari Smith quote - "You'll never influence the world by trying to be like it". So true. Or “Martin Luther was the first media star”. Or "The telephone domesticated electronic communications". Or "The vast majority of people believe that the more they get to know a person, the more they'll like that person." Research proves that this last one is just not true.
Or finally "The language we use doesn't express our thoughts it shapes them". Are we then different people when we use different media? I think so. In the way that we are different people when we speak a foreign language, we are different when we are writing a formal letter or sending a text. Facebook News Feed wants to reduce us to being "one person". But I also believe we have layers, and again believe we need to fight back against what the Tech Guys want from us.
Carr also argues that we post on digital to confirm our existing beliefs and to create our sense of self. “I post therefore I am” has supplanted Descartes “I think there I am”. (My quotes.) More than this our sense of self is determined more by what images we create or share on social media – what others see – than internal analysis. This is a big thought and reflects a big change in society. Further, by turning us all into “Media personalities” social media has also turned us all into rivals. (Page 109.)
Most tellingly Carr states that “The human psyche is not well suited to today’s media environment.
The biggest drawback to the book is what can be done to reduce the negative impact of technologies on society. Carr argues that adding friction to the process – like adding speed bumps – will help. But surely the solution is bigger than this.
Today’s youth are already finding ways to combat the negative effects. And they have some good answers. Many of them are simply disconnecting or going on digital fasts, for set times during their week. Others are turning to a pre-digital age (Y2K era) where they don’t have smartphones. If they have a phone, it’s a flip phone that reduces their intake of social media.
Society should re-emphasise that digital can never take the place of face-to-face contact and as Carr says, “Empathy doesn’t scale”. We need to support and showcase both the positives “In real life” – which I find to be a funny term itself. Books, hanging out with family, rediscovering the outdoors, yoga – these are all experiences than cannot be found, or are at least much less important, in the digital world. Finally regulators need to start regulating the Big Tech platforms and remove some of the protections like Section 230 that allow them to act irresponsibly.
This is a great book. I highly recommend it. In fact I'm going to reread it.
This book is a history of media technology, extending back to Guttenberg and moveable type, and covering all the major milestones of technology – the telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, internet, social media and ending off with AI. It discusses how technology has shaped society and culture – vs. society shaping technology – and ultimately shows how communications is tearing our society apart, today.
The thing I liked most about the book was that it is well-reasoned and logical.
Nicholas Carr takes us on a journey through media evolution showing us specifically how we think, what we think, and what we do as a consequence. For example, the telegraph and the telephone shrank distances and created pressure to react quickly to what was communicated. In turn, this reduced the ability of diplomats to de-escalate conflicts; radio and television united people to a certain degree, allowing them to share experiences at scale, and often unifying them in their views – for better or worse.
Then the Internet changed everything by making communications instantaneous, allowing at least a second life, and in many cases a number of digital worlds. In this new "life", people could, on the one hand enjoy the abundance of riches; but on the other, be at the same time, isolated (and at the same time connected), lonely, subjected to tribal groupthink, and face hateful content. It's a mixed blessing.
Today's "Kings of Technology" - Zuckerberg, Andreessen, Gates - would love us to live more and more online, and less in the real world. I think this is a mistake. We need to spend less time in digital land and wrestle back the time we spend for the real world. This is the way to combat loneliness and to improve happiness. And it cannot be that only the rich tech guys enjoy the riches of the real world while others are relegated to the digital world. We need to fight back against this travesty.
I enjoyed the author's references to the great thinkers on media, including Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) who coined the phrase “Social Media” in the 19th Century. Cooley wrote that society shapes the individual more than the other way round. I’d not heard of Cooley before and now want to know more.
Further, I also learned more about Walter Lippmann (1889 -1974) and his argument that the world is too complicated to understand. As a result, each of us constructs a “Pseudo-environment” or a simplified version of reality. I'll have to get Lippmann's 1922 book "Public Opinion".
Each one of us has these model environments within us. Some are logical and organised while others are very far apart from reality. The upshot of this is as Anis Nin said “We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are”. While we all live in one common world, each of us sees a very different view of it.
This tells us that we need to first ask questions about how a person views the world to have an effective conversation with them. The instantaneous nature of text doesn't not make this easy.
Mass media (radio and TV) transformed society in the 20th Century. For example, the telephone domesticated communications and made it immediate and private. Radio transformed news and how society could be re-shaped and media also became political with different stations appealing to different target audiences. Radio also brought in regulation and licensing requirement after the Titanic when private radio broadcasts interfered with the rescue of its passengers. (There was “fake news” about whether it was actually sinking or not.) The mass market was also a time of uniformity and consumed socially within families.
The author correctly identifies the deregulation in the 1996 Telecommunications Act (with its famous Section 230 exemption which shielded digital firms from liability – and indeed accountability) and the 2006 introduction of Facebook News Feed, as the two main forces changing the media landscape in America and indeed the world. The 1996 act broke down the legal barriers between personal and commercial media. This is a key reason why Big Tech rarely cares about our privacy. Acts like this took away our rights and we need to force regulators to give them back. Why should the Big Tech platforms have Section 230 protection. It has just encouraged bad behaviour.
And Facebook’s News Feed agglomerated them, reducing everything into one idea – Content – no matter if it was personal, commercial, text, audio, visuals, or videos. Facebook's users became the content produces, the audience, and the product (meaning their data trail) that could be sold to advertisers.
This innovation drove “time on platform” for Facebook up and was incredible successful because more time spent meant more ads watched, and more revenue generated for Facebook. In turn this took us away from time in the real world - which is a much more empathetic place. So empathy overall has suffered since the advent of digital communications.
Social Media is disrupting norms and shaping us today. In fact, the author argues is that the latest technologies of connection are really tearing us apart. We know this but he gets into the details of how this is happening, showing how care and concern for language started to decrease when the world moved from written and typed correspondence to email - which was more direct and somehow less personal - to Instant Messaging (IM) and text - which are very direct.
Letters and formal correspondence involved a type of slow and empathetic thinking that text does not have. It is back to Daniel Kahbemans "Thinking fast and Thinking Slow". Slow thinking is more thoughtful, measured, and tends to be more accurate, while fast thinking is more reactionary, emotional, and less accurate. Yet an increasing amount of correspondence is done in email and text. The result is that we are getting less measured communications and ones that don't necessary consider the "Pseudo-Environment" that Lippmann discussed - in the other person.
It's the choice of medium to communicate that is stimulating the tribal feelings in human nature that's tearing us apart. These Pseudo Environments are coping or defence mechanisms for dealing with an oversupply of information. As such they are often areas where people will push back if they are faced with information that doesn't fit within this condensed worldview. This is a very helpful insight into Identity, Politics, and how media is fuelling polarisation today.
Another thing that was interesting was the "Sound bites" that the author captured in his writing. He had great quotes and expressions, and I made many notes along the way. A couple that stand out are Jaci Mari Smith quote - "You'll never influence the world by trying to be like it". So true. Or “Martin Luther was the first media star”. Or "The telephone domesticated electronic communications". Or "The vast majority of people believe that the more they get to know a person, the more they'll like that person." Research proves that this last one is just not true.
Or finally "The language we use doesn't express our thoughts it shapes them". Are we then different people when we use different media? I think so. In the way that we are different people when we speak a foreign language, we are different when we are writing a formal letter or sending a text. Facebook News Feed wants to reduce us to being "one person". But I also believe we have layers, and again believe we need to fight back against what the Tech Guys want from us.
Carr also argues that we post on digital to confirm our existing beliefs and to create our sense of self. “I post therefore I am” has supplanted Descartes “I think there I am”. (My quotes.) More than this our sense of self is determined more by what images we create or share on social media – what others see – than internal analysis. This is a big thought and reflects a big change in society. Further, by turning us all into “Media personalities” social media has also turned us all into rivals. (Page 109.)
Most tellingly Carr states that “The human psyche is not well suited to today’s media environment.
The biggest drawback to the book is what can be done to reduce the negative impact of technologies on society. Carr argues that adding friction to the process – like adding speed bumps – will help. But surely the solution is bigger than this.
Today’s youth are already finding ways to combat the negative effects. And they have some good answers. Many of them are simply disconnecting or going on digital fasts, for set times during their week. Others are turning to a pre-digital age (Y2K era) where they don’t have smartphones. If they have a phone, it’s a flip phone that reduces their intake of social media.
Society should re-emphasise that digital can never take the place of face-to-face contact and as Carr says, “Empathy doesn’t scale”. We need to support and showcase both the positives “In real life” – which I find to be a funny term itself. Books, hanging out with family, rediscovering the outdoors, yoga – these are all experiences than cannot be found, or are at least much less important, in the digital world. Finally regulators need to start regulating the Big Tech platforms and remove some of the protections like Section 230 that allow them to act irresponsibly.
This is a great book. I highly recommend it. In fact I'm going to reread it.
February 27, 2025
I'm stingy with 5 star reviews. A book has to be compulsively readable, I have to learn new things, it has to challenge my beliefs, and of course it has to be reasonably accessible. Given that I've read heaps of related books, including 'Weapons of Math Destruction', 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism', 'The Anxious Generation', 'Supremacy', etc., I was wary of another book covering similar material. Good news, this book delivered, and far surpassed my expectations. If you haven't read but have one of the above books on your "To Read" list, or you have read some/all and enjoyed them, then this book is for you.
Mr Carr cites or references key figures, from Baudrillard to Sontag, and Hoffman to... Andreessen (eek) to present his position. Fear not, it's not too academic, along with sociological and physiological insights I learned a bunch of fun stuff which kept the book entertaining and not too doom and gloom; like the Pony Express only operated for 18 months, the congested and contradictory radio chatter as the Titanic sank stymied the rescue efforts and led to reform of airwaves licensing, and ChatGPT is programmed to deliver results in a staggered manner so as not to intimidate or frighten humans. Cool stuff, BUT more importantly, this book synthesized so many of the other books and articles that I have read and provided a coherent, current, overarching perspective. It checked all of my boxes.
Mr Carr's astute observation that in effect, the 'platform' has evolved to become the party machine, be it a brand of product, political party or simply a viewpoint was a fantastic perspective. Unfortunately, we are now living in a world where, "The democratization of media has paradoxically created an information environment conducive to authoritarian movements and cuts of personality."
As I wrote above, what makes a great book for me is one that shifts and challenges my beliefs. Throughout the book I would make a note on how I disagree and then later the information presented made me second guess. For example, I initially disagreed with the author's view that "we've been too quick to blame social media platforms for our own shortcomings." but his argument that "The Internet is not broken. It's operating as it was designed to operate. It's succeeding in making our dream of perfect communication - efficient, unfettered - a reality, even as it reveals the dream to have been a delusion all along." got me thinking.
Still, I remain baffled and angry that too many friends and family who 'know better' and complain about numerous toxic by-products of social media maintain their accounts and activity. A recent Last Week Tonight segment had a takedown of the utter failure of content moderation and social media in general. The host noted that the search for "how to delete social media..." had increased 5000% and nobody in the audience clapped and the host didn't support this action. Instead he offered a band-aid to make viewers feel good and that Meta will ultimately circumvent in a few weeks. They'll send an update email and a twenty page 'notice of changes' that all will accept without reading, and this will reset their privacy settings! Hasn't been a rationalization I can accept to be on social media for years but, that's just me wanting a healthier and more... connected world. OK, off my soapbox and back to praise for this book.
The author's detailed presentation of research into how humans process information and interact with one another as it relates to our preference for a reasonable speed, and interpersonal vs hyper speed and online was perhaps the most coherent and powerful one I've read. Basically he referenced the frontier mythology and more importantly the fact that humans and accelerated information input lead to unhealthy outcomes. Fractured, divided, distracted, and less rational. But he is so good at structuring and ordering his arguments and viewpoints.
I do not agree with all of the authors positions. For example he writes, "Creative types are not about to lose their jobs en masse." It may be that we differ on exactly what 'en masse' means but I'm a creative professional and there's a whole lot of folks getting laid off presently with technology as the principle factor. There were numerous other times where I wished the author was an acquaintance and I could discuss and debate with him, but ultimately the book satisfied this desire and did an excellent job of changing my mind, deepening my appreciation for a particular perspective or offering a completely new idea.
Regarding solutions, the concluding chapter was perhaps my favorite. There are a few solutions dissected and detailed, and while I think introducing 'frictional design' into social media has merit I tend to agree that change at this point will be difficult. I won't... spoil the ending but, like the entire book, I found it satisfying on multiple levels.
Mr Carr cites or references key figures, from Baudrillard to Sontag, and Hoffman to... Andreessen (eek) to present his position. Fear not, it's not too academic, along with sociological and physiological insights I learned a bunch of fun stuff which kept the book entertaining and not too doom and gloom; like the Pony Express only operated for 18 months, the congested and contradictory radio chatter as the Titanic sank stymied the rescue efforts and led to reform of airwaves licensing, and ChatGPT is programmed to deliver results in a staggered manner so as not to intimidate or frighten humans. Cool stuff, BUT more importantly, this book synthesized so many of the other books and articles that I have read and provided a coherent, current, overarching perspective. It checked all of my boxes.
Mr Carr's astute observation that in effect, the 'platform' has evolved to become the party machine, be it a brand of product, political party or simply a viewpoint was a fantastic perspective. Unfortunately, we are now living in a world where, "The democratization of media has paradoxically created an information environment conducive to authoritarian movements and cuts of personality."
As I wrote above, what makes a great book for me is one that shifts and challenges my beliefs. Throughout the book I would make a note on how I disagree and then later the information presented made me second guess. For example, I initially disagreed with the author's view that "we've been too quick to blame social media platforms for our own shortcomings." but his argument that "The Internet is not broken. It's operating as it was designed to operate. It's succeeding in making our dream of perfect communication - efficient, unfettered - a reality, even as it reveals the dream to have been a delusion all along." got me thinking.
Still, I remain baffled and angry that too many friends and family who 'know better' and complain about numerous toxic by-products of social media maintain their accounts and activity. A recent Last Week Tonight segment had a takedown of the utter failure of content moderation and social media in general. The host noted that the search for "how to delete social media..." had increased 5000% and nobody in the audience clapped and the host didn't support this action. Instead he offered a band-aid to make viewers feel good and that Meta will ultimately circumvent in a few weeks. They'll send an update email and a twenty page 'notice of changes' that all will accept without reading, and this will reset their privacy settings! Hasn't been a rationalization I can accept to be on social media for years but, that's just me wanting a healthier and more... connected world. OK, off my soapbox and back to praise for this book.
The author's detailed presentation of research into how humans process information and interact with one another as it relates to our preference for a reasonable speed, and interpersonal vs hyper speed and online was perhaps the most coherent and powerful one I've read. Basically he referenced the frontier mythology and more importantly the fact that humans and accelerated information input lead to unhealthy outcomes. Fractured, divided, distracted, and less rational. But he is so good at structuring and ordering his arguments and viewpoints.
I do not agree with all of the authors positions. For example he writes, "Creative types are not about to lose their jobs en masse." It may be that we differ on exactly what 'en masse' means but I'm a creative professional and there's a whole lot of folks getting laid off presently with technology as the principle factor. There were numerous other times where I wished the author was an acquaintance and I could discuss and debate with him, but ultimately the book satisfied this desire and did an excellent job of changing my mind, deepening my appreciation for a particular perspective or offering a completely new idea.
Regarding solutions, the concluding chapter was perhaps my favorite. There are a few solutions dissected and detailed, and while I think introducing 'frictional design' into social media has merit I tend to agree that change at this point will be difficult. I won't... spoil the ending but, like the entire book, I found it satisfying on multiple levels.
January 28, 2025
Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
I really enjoyed this book.
Having really enjoyed his previous book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, I knew I was in for an interesting and important book - and that is what this book was!
Carr argues that increased communication and information sharing may not actually lead to societal progress. I found this point really set the book apart in a unique way
After reading this book, I found it really gave me a new insight to my relationship with technology and communication tools. And this is for the positive.
I highly recommend checking this book out, and I found it a really refreshing and interesting take than many of the books on technology.
Not alarmist, but cautiously thinking about your digital use can make a big change!
Check it out.
4.4/5
I really enjoyed this book.
Having really enjoyed his previous book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, I knew I was in for an interesting and important book - and that is what this book was!
Carr argues that increased communication and information sharing may not actually lead to societal progress. I found this point really set the book apart in a unique way
After reading this book, I found it really gave me a new insight to my relationship with technology and communication tools. And this is for the positive.
I highly recommend checking this book out, and I found it a really refreshing and interesting take than many of the books on technology.
Not alarmist, but cautiously thinking about your digital use can make a big change!
Check it out.
4.4/5
March 26, 2025
i was confused for a lot of this book bc i would get bored and stop paying attention but it was aight
February 27, 2025
I fear this cured my insta addiction
May 31, 2025
Mi-a plăcut!
Surprinde într-un mod plăcut și ușor de urmărit istoria dezvoltării comunicării, ajungând până la tehnologia din zilele noastre cu toate minusurile ei (pentru că eu am simțit din plin accentul pus pe minusuri și pe cum folosim în mod greșit ceea ce inițial trebuia să ne ajute să evoluăm).
Tehnologia nu este rea dar noi suntem 🥹
Surprinde într-un mod plăcut și ușor de urmărit istoria dezvoltării comunicării, ajungând până la tehnologia din zilele noastre cu toate minusurile ei (pentru că eu am simțit din plin accentul pus pe minusuri și pe cum folosim în mod greșit ceea ce inițial trebuia să ne ajute să evoluăm).
Tehnologia nu este rea dar noi suntem 🥹
July 20, 2025
Nicholas Carr (b. 1959) is an American technology and business journalist probably best known by general audiences for his 2010 book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, which I read years ago and still think about. His 2025 book Superbloom expands on his body of work and explores how technological advances in the the last 15-20 years have continued to reshape the nature, quality, and depth of human thinking, interactions and relationships.
I found Superbloom thought-provoking and highly relevant. I'm dating myself here, but I distinctly remember living through many of the changes Carr describes from the viewpoint of a cultural anthropologist: the rise of internet chatrooms and forums in the '90s and early '00s, desktop-based instant messenger software as a precursor to mobile texting, Facebook when it was only for college students, the introduction of smartphones in the late '00s, the transition between ultra-slow dial-up internet and ultra-fast broadband internet and seemingly-ubiquitous wifi that enabled constant connectivity, the introduction of open-access social media platforms and the performative and parasocial relationships they engendered, the influencer economy and expectation for constant connectivity, and the technological advances like cameras in everyone's pocket and genAI that have defined our current era. I agree with Carr that all of these changes, incremental as they may seem, have made profound and irrevocable differences in how humans interact and behave.
That being said, books about how technology impact society and psychology are abundant these days, and many of the concepts Carr covers have already been covered in recent works (some linked below). However, I do think this book is worth reading even if you've read others on my list, as Carr has a talent for synthesizing and analyzing the big picture in an especially incisive way.
Further reading:
Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara | my review
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka | my review
Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari | my review
My statistics:
Book 222 for 2025
Book 2148 cumulatively
I found Superbloom thought-provoking and highly relevant. I'm dating myself here, but I distinctly remember living through many of the changes Carr describes from the viewpoint of a cultural anthropologist: the rise of internet chatrooms and forums in the '90s and early '00s, desktop-based instant messenger software as a precursor to mobile texting, Facebook when it was only for college students, the introduction of smartphones in the late '00s, the transition between ultra-slow dial-up internet and ultra-fast broadband internet and seemingly-ubiquitous wifi that enabled constant connectivity, the introduction of open-access social media platforms and the performative and parasocial relationships they engendered, the influencer economy and expectation for constant connectivity, and the technological advances like cameras in everyone's pocket and genAI that have defined our current era. I agree with Carr that all of these changes, incremental as they may seem, have made profound and irrevocable differences in how humans interact and behave.
That being said, books about how technology impact society and psychology are abundant these days, and many of the concepts Carr covers have already been covered in recent works (some linked below). However, I do think this book is worth reading even if you've read others on my list, as Carr has a talent for synthesizing and analyzing the big picture in an especially incisive way.
Further reading:
Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara | my review
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka | my review
Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari | my review
My statistics:
Book 222 for 2025
Book 2148 cumulatively
December 26, 2025
"The cosmos, the opening verses of the Bible tell us, was spoken into being: "God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light." The original act of creation was an action of communication....To be fashioned in God's image is to share his ability to speak....Whether understood as a providential gift or natural phenomenon, our fluency at communication is central to our sense of ourselves as exception beings at pinnacle of life's hierarchy."
"It would be hard to overstate how deeply people's lives were changed by access to the mail. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, a time of growing migration and mobility, not to mention the dislocations of war, "epistolary intimacy" became "a basic mode of social and familial interaction," writes historian David Henkin in his book The Postal Age. "Americans began to turn expectantly to the post, calibrating their perceptions of connectedness to the regular schedules of the U.S. mail."
"As the internet became the world's primary informational medium, the language developed for instant messaging and texting became a substitute not just for talking but for writing....Reading and writing, when practiced with attentiveness and care, serve a different role. They slow the mind down, force it to grapple with the complex and the unfamiliar. In the words of cultural critic Thomas de Zengotita, "reading and writing turn the mind inward, cultivate habits of rational reflection, encourage the imagination, the inner life in general--thus giving birth to a self in the modern sense."
"On the internet, the wiretap would not be a bug; it would be a feature."
—Nicholas Carr, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear us Apart
One of the most critically important reads I’ve come across in some time. Carr writes a history of communication that is succinct and clear; but it’s his warning about the effects of digital mediums - on comprehension and personality - that will linger with you. We are conversing with one another and absorbing information at rates and speeds previously unimaginable; yet our ability to communicate has arguably suffered, even as our (critical) conceptions of self are reshaped in 10-second clips. Digital media has us all alone together. We are not the better for it.
"It would be hard to overstate how deeply people's lives were changed by access to the mail. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, a time of growing migration and mobility, not to mention the dislocations of war, "epistolary intimacy" became "a basic mode of social and familial interaction," writes historian David Henkin in his book The Postal Age. "Americans began to turn expectantly to the post, calibrating their perceptions of connectedness to the regular schedules of the U.S. mail."
"As the internet became the world's primary informational medium, the language developed for instant messaging and texting became a substitute not just for talking but for writing....Reading and writing, when practiced with attentiveness and care, serve a different role. They slow the mind down, force it to grapple with the complex and the unfamiliar. In the words of cultural critic Thomas de Zengotita, "reading and writing turn the mind inward, cultivate habits of rational reflection, encourage the imagination, the inner life in general--thus giving birth to a self in the modern sense."
"On the internet, the wiretap would not be a bug; it would be a feature."
—Nicholas Carr, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear us Apart
One of the most critically important reads I’ve come across in some time. Carr writes a history of communication that is succinct and clear; but it’s his warning about the effects of digital mediums - on comprehension and personality - that will linger with you. We are conversing with one another and absorbing information at rates and speeds previously unimaginable; yet our ability to communicate has arguably suffered, even as our (critical) conceptions of self are reshaped in 10-second clips. Digital media has us all alone together. We are not the better for it.
March 8, 2025
not at all what i expected (my fault of course). reads like an academic textbook about history of communication. doesn't add much from what we already know. i struggled a lot especially in the first section so had to skim a lot.
September 2, 2025
help i cant stop reading books about media
this was so well researched and his writing is so readable. and him ending about how ai is going to destroy any shred of rationale and reason we currently have in how we communicate 🤩
only critique is him referencing israeli research…like ok bestie why are you undermining your writing like that
💫some interesting quotes 💫
The more mediated our lives become, the more we come to see ourselves, and others, as abstractions.
A self diagnosed mental illness can be ‘incorporated into one’s self concept’. Its symptoms…become ‘character traits that made individuals sharper and more interesting than others around them.
The real world can’t compete. Compared with the programmed delights of the virtual, it feels dull, slow, and, poignantly enough, lifeless.
A life spent only seeking is an empty life. What we see today as the real world’s shortcomings—its withholdings of easy and immediate amusements, its stretches of solitude and boredom, its frictions and inefficiencies—are the very things that open the world’s possibilities to us.
this was so well researched and his writing is so readable. and him ending about how ai is going to destroy any shred of rationale and reason we currently have in how we communicate 🤩
only critique is him referencing israeli research…like ok bestie why are you undermining your writing like that
💫some interesting quotes 💫
The more mediated our lives become, the more we come to see ourselves, and others, as abstractions.
A self diagnosed mental illness can be ‘incorporated into one’s self concept’. Its symptoms…become ‘character traits that made individuals sharper and more interesting than others around them.
The real world can’t compete. Compared with the programmed delights of the virtual, it feels dull, slow, and, poignantly enough, lifeless.
A life spent only seeking is an empty life. What we see today as the real world’s shortcomings—its withholdings of easy and immediate amusements, its stretches of solitude and boredom, its frictions and inefficiencies—are the very things that open the world’s possibilities to us.
August 9, 2025
«Most information is junk» says Yuval Noah Harari. That means that having access to more information does not make us smarter, kinder or more well informed. Particularly not when we have engagement maximizing algorithms sorting it for us.
The author gives a short history of communication — from language emergence to letter writing, to the telegraph and wireless to the ubiquitous web. Privacy had deteriorated. Emails are not protected. People don’t seem to even hesitate to have private conversations on loud speakers on public transportation even.
Familiarity does not tolerance and liking. It’s even the opposite: the more we know about some people, the less we like them. Just take that orange faced narcissist at the helm of the United States as an example. This means that the internet, where we share too much, is great at polarizing us further. Again, greatly helped by the tech giants’ algorithms.
The author gives a short history of communication — from language emergence to letter writing, to the telegraph and wireless to the ubiquitous web. Privacy had deteriorated. Emails are not protected. People don’t seem to even hesitate to have private conversations on loud speakers on public transportation even.
Familiarity does not tolerance and liking. It’s even the opposite: the more we know about some people, the less we like them. Just take that orange faced narcissist at the helm of the United States as an example. This means that the internet, where we share too much, is great at polarizing us further. Again, greatly helped by the tech giants’ algorithms.
April 1, 2025
Audio.
This was a thought provoking book about how information/communication technology changes culture: how it shapes community, language, politics, psychology, etc. It starts with histories of personal vs mass communications, how they differ, and what protections have been developed in its evolution.
I like the example of the Federal Radio Commission revoking JR Brinkley’s broadcasting license because his medical claims were harmful to public interest. He was a snake-oil surgeon who made his money transplanting goat testes into men for fertility.
It also made me curious about other instances like George Carlin’s “Filthy Words” case (FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 1978) and how the Titanic tragedy led to the Radio Act of 1912.
We’ve always found a way to regulate mass communications with changes in technology when we become aware of how it might be detrimental to public interest until now.
“The combination of deregulation and digitalization erased the legal and ethical distinction between interpersonal communication and broadcast communication that had governed the media in the 20th century.”
The end of the book goes more into the current state of social media and AI communication. He makes the point that social media influencer accounts with over a certain amount of followers should have to pay for a sort of broadcasting license and be regulated.
It was a fantastic history, poli-sci, psychology read.
—
"In an age of mass media people have more information than they can handle. To seize their attention and influence their thoughts and behavior you don't need to give them more stuff to think about. You need to activate the information and attendant emotions already present in their memory. In communicating in electronic speed we no longer direct information into an audience but try to evoke stored information out of them in a patterned way."
This was a thought provoking book about how information/communication technology changes culture: how it shapes community, language, politics, psychology, etc. It starts with histories of personal vs mass communications, how they differ, and what protections have been developed in its evolution.
I like the example of the Federal Radio Commission revoking JR Brinkley’s broadcasting license because his medical claims were harmful to public interest. He was a snake-oil surgeon who made his money transplanting goat testes into men for fertility.
It also made me curious about other instances like George Carlin’s “Filthy Words” case (FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 1978) and how the Titanic tragedy led to the Radio Act of 1912.
We’ve always found a way to regulate mass communications with changes in technology when we become aware of how it might be detrimental to public interest until now.
“The combination of deregulation and digitalization erased the legal and ethical distinction between interpersonal communication and broadcast communication that had governed the media in the 20th century.”
The end of the book goes more into the current state of social media and AI communication. He makes the point that social media influencer accounts with over a certain amount of followers should have to pay for a sort of broadcasting license and be regulated.
It was a fantastic history, poli-sci, psychology read.
—
"In an age of mass media people have more information than they can handle. To seize their attention and influence their thoughts and behavior you don't need to give them more stuff to think about. You need to activate the information and attendant emotions already present in their memory. In communicating in electronic speed we no longer direct information into an audience but try to evoke stored information out of them in a patterned way."
March 27, 2025
Another great book about our modern times. Carr takes us through the history of communication and the ways it has been regarded and legislated. He includes a discussion of AI and its effect on modern connection.
The final section discusses the idea of "frictional design", things that could act as speed bumps to our online lives, such as limited scrolling and having to pay a fee for wider distribution of posts. "The computer is so quick to sense and fulfill our desires that it never allows us the opportunity to examine our desires, to ask ourselves whether what we choose, or what is chosen for us, is worthy of the choosing."
How do we resist the lure on online existence? Do we have the strength to resist?
The final section discusses the idea of "frictional design", things that could act as speed bumps to our online lives, such as limited scrolling and having to pay a fee for wider distribution of posts. "The computer is so quick to sense and fulfill our desires that it never allows us the opportunity to examine our desires, to ask ourselves whether what we choose, or what is chosen for us, is worthy of the choosing."
How do we resist the lure on online existence? Do we have the strength to resist?
February 28, 2025
Current, fascinating, and immensely thought provoking.
July 24, 2025
A testament to the value of a written work lies in the reconfiguration it invites in one's thinking. More importantly, it lies in how it connects the issue it diagnoses to our own role as individuals with agency and thus responsibility for our actions. This book excels at exposing a malaise deeply rooted in our time: the dislocation and disorientation brought by the rapid pace of change in our social and cultural reality. It traces this condition back to a common suspect: communication technologies, especially the all-powerful social media. This alone isn’t a novel observation. It has become all too common, particularly for my generation, who grew up amid such change and had to face the constant remarks of parents, teachers, and society over the corrosive effects of social media. Yet the author manages to add something different. Rather than retell the same story in new terms, he carries it forward with a holistic approach that refuses to isolate the object from its subject (us) or its context.
This work traces how efforts to improve mechanisms of information, by making them ever more efficient in transmitting messages, not only achieved the desired outcome of creating a 'frictionless' media but also changed us and the way we relate to others and to reality itself. The ideal was that such improvements would bring democratization through the decentralization of communication, a process expected to herald the rise of a new community of men: better informed, more sympathetic, more unified. This, in turn, was supposed to strengthen the already robust democratic state, where ideas, through a Darwinian struggle in a marketplace of free exchange, would rise solely on the merit of their truth and their value to society.
That vision, however, has proven to be a mirage, as our current state of affairs makes painfully clear. What the oracles failed to foresee was how media efficiency, when pushed to an extreme "so accelerates the flow of information that people no longer have the luxury of careful reading, methodical evaluation, and contemplative inquiry."
They thought that the new improvements would only speed up a routine activity, that it wouldn’t change people’s behavior or their attitudes.
The author covered a lot of points in a surprisingly compact book (about 200 pages), a couple of which are worth noting here:
1/ The problem communication engineers faced around the middle of the past century was how to transmit a message efficiently from sender to receiver with as little distortion as possible. The carrier, you see, was only concerned with carrying the message. It didn’t read it, nor did it pass judgment on its meaning.
Today, the change is such that not only is the process of transmission automated via algorithms, but the carrier itself (besides playing the role of postman) also takes on the role of moderator. It passes judgment on the content itself, selecting through secretive and private processes under the auspices of tech companies which content is to be distributed to which recipient.
And it doesn’t stop there. The author’s concern extends to the role of large language models and how they might fill in the remaining role of the human element itself.
We are part of the medium because as we consume content, we are ourselves contributing with content of our own. But with the rise of AI, even this role might be usurped, so that the whole process of content production, distribution, and moderation is automated. We may end up with a world where even thought itself is delegated. If we seek to optimize everything, including the way we socialize, then the rational conclusion of this drive to perfection (this frictionless system) is to give up our role in creating ideas. Why bother, if the bot can do it better than you anyway? That’s the whole point, remember.
2/ I liked the author’s treatment of the issue of identity under the new status quo. The "self" stopped being rooted in a physical place with both spatial and temporal boundaries. This physical space used to tame our instincts and had a shock-absorption dimension to it.
In the time of analog media, a demarcation existed, one that helped categorize subjects by their value. If you wanted to communicate with someone, you might fax, send a handwritten letter, or call them. Each option depended on the level of intimacy that bound you to the person on the other end. Similarly, news and TV in general could be consumed in the living room. And if you felt too saturated with information, you could always opt out by shutting the machine and leaving that room giving you time to contemplate what you had just processed, and even self-reflect on how it affected you. Now, this demarcation between the public and the private, the sanctity of this inner refuge and the open space of information saturation, has faded away. Triviality and importance, violence and entertainment, truth and myth have all collapsed into a single category: content. The self itself became just that: one content in a sea of content competing for the attention of strangers in a virtual space that expands everywhere and nowhere. There’s no longer a shelter or refuge of private life to which one can escape.
Familiarity not only breeds contempt (as the author shows), but it also tames our impulse to seek ever-new experiences by familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings and the people around us. Once the novelty of experience wears off, we become less impulsive, less erratic, more thoughtful. Our thinking sharpens under the serenity of the permanent. It brings with it a contemplative, deeper, self-reflective mindset unlike the ephemeral, transitory world of the virtual spheres where There are no spatial or temporal boundaries to tame the "seeking impulse." Familiarity is denied a place to settle due to the onslaught of novel content from everywhere. No matter where you swipe (up, down, left, or right) there’s always a new thing waiting to be explored. And unlike in the old days, when to gratify the seeking urge you had to go out and "touch grass," nowadays that urge can be satisfied with a simple click. The medium of communication not only managed to include us as both consumers and producers of content, but effectively managed to imprison us with no way out. Being a part of it became so effective that leaving is, in our time, virtually impossible.
The author’s closing chapter seeks a remedy to this, and he seems to oscillate between the idea that it’s too late to make a change and the suggestion that we should simply introduce friction and slow the pace of communication through legislation. As an alternative to resolve the contradiction of a solution that is necessary but has already been outpaced by events, he proposes an excommunication from the system itself. Other than this and a few other optimistic wishes, he doesn’t provide much help in the way of a remedy.
I highly recommend this book for its insights and for being genuinely helpful in explaining the changes brought about by digital media and the mechanisms by which every aspect of our lives, including the way we see ourselves, came to be shaped by and made to accommodate it.
I can’t help but compare this spirit of efficiency and the impulse to smooth communication exchange and make the transfer of information ever so effortless and frictionless (something that has become an obsession by now to be honest) with the spirit of Italian Futurism from the beginning of the last century. Although it was born out of a different context and philosophy (its creed after all in contrast with our age is one of action), it still works to illustrate one shared point between both: an obsession with speed and the exaltation of the present.
The Futurist Manifesto, written by Marinetti in 1909, encapsulates it best when it says:
"We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace."
Personal rating: 4/5
This work traces how efforts to improve mechanisms of information, by making them ever more efficient in transmitting messages, not only achieved the desired outcome of creating a 'frictionless' media but also changed us and the way we relate to others and to reality itself. The ideal was that such improvements would bring democratization through the decentralization of communication, a process expected to herald the rise of a new community of men: better informed, more sympathetic, more unified. This, in turn, was supposed to strengthen the already robust democratic state, where ideas, through a Darwinian struggle in a marketplace of free exchange, would rise solely on the merit of their truth and their value to society.
That vision, however, has proven to be a mirage, as our current state of affairs makes painfully clear. What the oracles failed to foresee was how media efficiency, when pushed to an extreme "so accelerates the flow of information that people no longer have the luxury of careful reading, methodical evaluation, and contemplative inquiry."
They thought that the new improvements would only speed up a routine activity, that it wouldn’t change people’s behavior or their attitudes.
The author covered a lot of points in a surprisingly compact book (about 200 pages), a couple of which are worth noting here:
1/ The problem communication engineers faced around the middle of the past century was how to transmit a message efficiently from sender to receiver with as little distortion as possible. The carrier, you see, was only concerned with carrying the message. It didn’t read it, nor did it pass judgment on its meaning.
Today, the change is such that not only is the process of transmission automated via algorithms, but the carrier itself (besides playing the role of postman) also takes on the role of moderator. It passes judgment on the content itself, selecting through secretive and private processes under the auspices of tech companies which content is to be distributed to which recipient.
And it doesn’t stop there. The author’s concern extends to the role of large language models and how they might fill in the remaining role of the human element itself.
We are part of the medium because as we consume content, we are ourselves contributing with content of our own. But with the rise of AI, even this role might be usurped, so that the whole process of content production, distribution, and moderation is automated. We may end up with a world where even thought itself is delegated. If we seek to optimize everything, including the way we socialize, then the rational conclusion of this drive to perfection (this frictionless system) is to give up our role in creating ideas. Why bother, if the bot can do it better than you anyway? That’s the whole point, remember.
2/ I liked the author’s treatment of the issue of identity under the new status quo. The "self" stopped being rooted in a physical place with both spatial and temporal boundaries. This physical space used to tame our instincts and had a shock-absorption dimension to it.
In the time of analog media, a demarcation existed, one that helped categorize subjects by their value. If you wanted to communicate with someone, you might fax, send a handwritten letter, or call them. Each option depended on the level of intimacy that bound you to the person on the other end. Similarly, news and TV in general could be consumed in the living room. And if you felt too saturated with information, you could always opt out by shutting the machine and leaving that room giving you time to contemplate what you had just processed, and even self-reflect on how it affected you. Now, this demarcation between the public and the private, the sanctity of this inner refuge and the open space of information saturation, has faded away. Triviality and importance, violence and entertainment, truth and myth have all collapsed into a single category: content. The self itself became just that: one content in a sea of content competing for the attention of strangers in a virtual space that expands everywhere and nowhere. There’s no longer a shelter or refuge of private life to which one can escape.
Familiarity not only breeds contempt (as the author shows), but it also tames our impulse to seek ever-new experiences by familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings and the people around us. Once the novelty of experience wears off, we become less impulsive, less erratic, more thoughtful. Our thinking sharpens under the serenity of the permanent. It brings with it a contemplative, deeper, self-reflective mindset unlike the ephemeral, transitory world of the virtual spheres where There are no spatial or temporal boundaries to tame the "seeking impulse." Familiarity is denied a place to settle due to the onslaught of novel content from everywhere. No matter where you swipe (up, down, left, or right) there’s always a new thing waiting to be explored. And unlike in the old days, when to gratify the seeking urge you had to go out and "touch grass," nowadays that urge can be satisfied with a simple click. The medium of communication not only managed to include us as both consumers and producers of content, but effectively managed to imprison us with no way out. Being a part of it became so effective that leaving is, in our time, virtually impossible.
The author’s closing chapter seeks a remedy to this, and he seems to oscillate between the idea that it’s too late to make a change and the suggestion that we should simply introduce friction and slow the pace of communication through legislation. As an alternative to resolve the contradiction of a solution that is necessary but has already been outpaced by events, he proposes an excommunication from the system itself. Other than this and a few other optimistic wishes, he doesn’t provide much help in the way of a remedy.
I highly recommend this book for its insights and for being genuinely helpful in explaining the changes brought about by digital media and the mechanisms by which every aspect of our lives, including the way we see ourselves, came to be shaped by and made to accommodate it.
I can’t help but compare this spirit of efficiency and the impulse to smooth communication exchange and make the transfer of information ever so effortless and frictionless (something that has become an obsession by now to be honest) with the spirit of Italian Futurism from the beginning of the last century. Although it was born out of a different context and philosophy (its creed after all in contrast with our age is one of action), it still works to illustrate one shared point between both: an obsession with speed and the exaltation of the present.
The Futurist Manifesto, written by Marinetti in 1909, encapsulates it best when it says:
"We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace."
Personal rating: 4/5
March 10, 2025
Informative and well-written. I learned a lot of the technical terms and research underpinning the suspicions I've (we've) all been developing about social media. How it makes us sad, destroys relationships, drives polarization and extremism, and divorces us from the real tangible world we live in. The conclusions aren't surprising, and probably won't be surprising to most of you. But the arguments went beyond the rhetoric of opinion pieces and discussed why -- not just the techno oligarchs visions and values, but the psychology, the neurology, and the way historic revolutions in mass media have driven similar mass changes in outlook and behaviour. And how our blind faith in technology and the inherently democratizing force of communication proved to be so utterly wrong.
The one flaw I found in the book was the first section, which was putatively about the technology but proved to be about the technology *in America.* Which is fine, but there is a world beyond America, and if we're arguing against the technology, we should be looking at how this has played out in different cultures with different regulatory frameworks and behavioural expectations. Is this destructive everywhere? Similarly destructive or differently? Do we have any evidence for or against the idea that it could have been different if we'd handled it differently? Impossible to say.
Carr believes it is too late for regulation and all we have now is personal or collective resistance, arguing that once a technology becomes established in society it is difficult if not impossible to redirect. This may or may not be true. I'm not sure it's so simple. Certainly we have managed to redirect some technologies or products that were causing harm -- seatbelts and tobacco regulations are two examples.
So it may be too early for his conclusion, but it is well written so I'll include it here anyway:
The one flaw I found in the book was the first section, which was putatively about the technology but proved to be about the technology *in America.* Which is fine, but there is a world beyond America, and if we're arguing against the technology, we should be looking at how this has played out in different cultures with different regulatory frameworks and behavioural expectations. Is this destructive everywhere? Similarly destructive or differently? Do we have any evidence for or against the idea that it could have been different if we'd handled it differently? Impossible to say.
Carr believes it is too late for regulation and all we have now is personal or collective resistance, arguing that once a technology becomes established in society it is difficult if not impossible to redirect. This may or may not be true. I'm not sure it's so simple. Certainly we have managed to redirect some technologies or products that were causing harm -- seatbelts and tobacco regulations are two examples.
So it may be too early for his conclusion, but it is well written so I'll include it here anyway:
That's the trick for us humans as well: to sense the world appropriately and often enough. It's a trick we'll need to relearn if we hope to escape imprisonment in the hyperreal....
To argue for a more material and less virtual existence is not to make a case for materialism alone. As the ambitions of Andreessen, Zuckerberg, and the other evangelists of virtual reality make clear, it's virtuality that reduces all concerns to the materialistic. Hyperreality is all surface and no depth. Beyond the simulation lies nothing at all, as Baudrillard saw. Any attempt to transcend reality, intellectually, artistically, or spiritually, ahs to begin from within reality, bounded by constraints of time and space. You can only get beyond the material by going through the material, by suffering and surmounting its frictions. And that becomes harder and harder to accomplish or even to imagine the more that life is mediated by mechanisms of communication. The computer is so quick to sense and fulfill our desires that it never allows us the opportunity to examine our desires, to ask ourselves whether what we choose, or what is chosen for us, is worthy of the choosing.
Maybe salvation, if that's not too strong a word, lies in personal, willful acts of excommunication .... If you don't live by your own code, you'll live by another's.
January 2, 2026
This was much more well researched and informative than I expected. It is not just a “put your phone away” self-help book, but a deep exploration of the history of communication, and how its evolution has impacted the way we think and engage with others (hint: quite negatively).
I deleted social media a few months ago, and this book has confirmed that my reasoning for deleting is not personal to me, but a universal experience. Sociological research proves that the more we know about a person, the more likely we are to find something about them that is counter to our value system, and thus dislike them completely. Social media has created false intimacy and torn down necessary and helpful boundaries that exist when we engage with others in person, so we all know too much about too many people. I deleted social media because I felt it was brewing contempt in me. I found myself growing more and more cynical, disliking more and more people, and I didn’t feel it was healthy.
Superbloom also talks about the content that captures our attention, and when it comes to news, the content users engage with most is generally false or untrue (because it’s most shocking). Couple that with the fact that our feeds are structured to be echo chambers, because that is comforting to us and keeps us coming back for more, we can reasonably conclude all of us are straying further and further from reality and good sense.
There was lots of other good historical, sociological, and psychological insight, but those are just a few that resonated with me most. I was impressed by the research and thoroughness that was accomplished without being overly pedantic and scholarly.
SO, my current vendetta with social media persists. My dear friends, be expecting letters from me in the future.
I deleted social media a few months ago, and this book has confirmed that my reasoning for deleting is not personal to me, but a universal experience. Sociological research proves that the more we know about a person, the more likely we are to find something about them that is counter to our value system, and thus dislike them completely. Social media has created false intimacy and torn down necessary and helpful boundaries that exist when we engage with others in person, so we all know too much about too many people. I deleted social media because I felt it was brewing contempt in me. I found myself growing more and more cynical, disliking more and more people, and I didn’t feel it was healthy.
Superbloom also talks about the content that captures our attention, and when it comes to news, the content users engage with most is generally false or untrue (because it’s most shocking). Couple that with the fact that our feeds are structured to be echo chambers, because that is comforting to us and keeps us coming back for more, we can reasonably conclude all of us are straying further and further from reality and good sense.
There was lots of other good historical, sociological, and psychological insight, but those are just a few that resonated with me most. I was impressed by the research and thoroughness that was accomplished without being overly pedantic and scholarly.
SO, my current vendetta with social media persists. My dear friends, be expecting letters from me in the future.
April 11, 2025
This is a challenging but delightful book by Nicholas Carr on the ever changing landscape of technology, communication, and what it means for humanity as a whole and each of us individually.
A broad-ranging book, but well-centered, Carr reviews how humans have communicated throughout history, the evolution of spoken word to written word to various technologies and what happens to both societies and people through these shifts. He then brings it very close to home in this really fresh book, discussing in depth the Covid crisis, social media, and concepts around AI and LLMs.
This was a total hit for my sociology/technology/humanities niche. Some of the final 1/4 got a bit heady, but I look forward to reading it again soon and digging in a bit further (GUYS IN MY BOOK CLUB IF YOU SEE THIS DON’T BOTHER READING THIS BOOK TILL MY PICK IN MAY).
Thanks to NetGalley, RBmedia, and the author for the ARC!
A broad-ranging book, but well-centered, Carr reviews how humans have communicated throughout history, the evolution of spoken word to written word to various technologies and what happens to both societies and people through these shifts. He then brings it very close to home in this really fresh book, discussing in depth the Covid crisis, social media, and concepts around AI and LLMs.
This was a total hit for my sociology/technology/humanities niche. Some of the final 1/4 got a bit heady, but I look forward to reading it again soon and digging in a bit further (GUYS IN MY BOOK CLUB IF YOU SEE THIS DON’T BOTHER READING THIS BOOK TILL MY PICK IN MAY).
Thanks to NetGalley, RBmedia, and the author for the ARC!
April 14, 2025
A book which only took me so long to read because of all the times I set it down and exhaled thinking about where humanity is headed. This would be my third Nicholas Carr book, each one communicating important warnings and lessons concerning technology and the human. Once again Carr merges the anxieties and issues of the past with the present - creating a clear picture of how technology has impacted humankind. Convicting and Alarming, Nicholas Carr raises important questions and awaits our response.
June 28, 2025
A well researched and well written book describing the history and social dynamics concerning the introduction of new communication technologies, and in specific the modern social media.
It was definitely quite illuminating for me - the book gives a more nuanced view of how technologies have impacted the self, the perception of self and our relationships with others.
It was definitely quite illuminating for me - the book gives a more nuanced view of how technologies have impacted the self, the perception of self and our relationships with others.
April 30, 2025
One of the best books, if not the best book that I've read (and will have read) this year. Carr's incisive commentary and historical review of the evolution of communication technologies from the pre-digital age, to the current era with social media, with its associated impacts on society is impressive and illuminating, much like his prescient book "The Shallows". A must-read!
March 30, 2025
4.5 stars, rounded up.
"O brave new world with such people in it!"
Making a strong case for bringing back digital friction. It helped me see and articulate certain things about smart phones and social media. The first section was a history of communication which was interesting and necessary, but went a little long in my taste, hence the loss of half a star. The rest was excellent.
"O brave new world with such people in it!"
Making a strong case for bringing back digital friction. It helped me see and articulate certain things about smart phones and social media. The first section was a history of communication which was interesting and necessary, but went a little long in my taste, hence the loss of half a star. The rest was excellent.
April 1, 2025
I plan on buying this book as a paper copy to read, annotate, and study. I listened to it as an audiobook and loved it but will admit I got lost at points. But the expansion of theories in this book are so well done that it really is worth a reread for me.
March 21, 2025
Marc Andreesen quoted / summarized on how the masses will be relegated to virtual reality: "'Humanity is condemned by natural law to radical inequality. Society will be divided into two groups: a tiny elite who lead full lives- the 'Reality Privileged'- and the masses who live impoverished ones. A small percent of people live in a real world environment that is rich, even overflowing, with glorious substance, beautiful settings, plentiful stimulation, and many fascinating people. Everyone else is condemned to a meager existence. Because inequality can't be remedied in the natural world, the masses will be better off in a virtual reality created by technologists and entrepreneurs. For the vast majority of humanity, the virtual world will be immeasurably richer and more fulfilling than most of the physical and social environment in the real world.'"
"You democratize the high life. The actual experience of glorious substance will still be reserved for the rich- only they will be allowed to handle the objects of desire- but at least everyone can enjoy a glorious simulation of experience. We can all be virtual epicureans. Andreesen offers us a vision of a world perfected through a sociotechnical act of noblesse oblige by the Big Tech wing of the Reality Privileged."
"The next question seems obvious: Why? Why abandon the world for a mere simulation? Why trade the richness of a field of flowers for a hashtag and a selfie? The screen provides...a shield against the risks of embarrassment and misinterpretation inherent in in-person socializing...There's a gap, a buffer, between the receipt of a message and the transmission of a reply. Socializing through apps reduces the sense of personal exposure while heightening the sense of personal control. On your phone, you are a little Oz behind a curtain."
"The real world can't compete. Compared with the programmed delights of the virtual, it feels dull, slow, and poignantly enough, lifeless. By filling every moment with novelty and exaggerating every psychic sensation, the hyperreal comes to feel more real than the real."
"A growing body of evidence suggests that our perception of our surroundings depends more on bodily engagement than on cognitive modeling. Analyses of complex human feats reveal how being in the world is necessary to making sense of the world...That's the trick for us humans: to sense the world appropriately and often enough. It's a trick we'll need to relearn if we hope to escape imprisonment in the hyperreal. Despite our infatuation with the easy simulations of the virtual, we can never make a true home there, at least not without sacrificing the qualities of sense and sensibility that make us most ourselves. Live in a simulation long enough, and you begin to think and talk like a chatbot. Your thoughts and words become the outputs of a prediction algorithm."
"You democratize the high life. The actual experience of glorious substance will still be reserved for the rich- only they will be allowed to handle the objects of desire- but at least everyone can enjoy a glorious simulation of experience. We can all be virtual epicureans. Andreesen offers us a vision of a world perfected through a sociotechnical act of noblesse oblige by the Big Tech wing of the Reality Privileged."
"The next question seems obvious: Why? Why abandon the world for a mere simulation? Why trade the richness of a field of flowers for a hashtag and a selfie? The screen provides...a shield against the risks of embarrassment and misinterpretation inherent in in-person socializing...There's a gap, a buffer, between the receipt of a message and the transmission of a reply. Socializing through apps reduces the sense of personal exposure while heightening the sense of personal control. On your phone, you are a little Oz behind a curtain."
"The real world can't compete. Compared with the programmed delights of the virtual, it feels dull, slow, and poignantly enough, lifeless. By filling every moment with novelty and exaggerating every psychic sensation, the hyperreal comes to feel more real than the real."
"A growing body of evidence suggests that our perception of our surroundings depends more on bodily engagement than on cognitive modeling. Analyses of complex human feats reveal how being in the world is necessary to making sense of the world...That's the trick for us humans: to sense the world appropriately and often enough. It's a trick we'll need to relearn if we hope to escape imprisonment in the hyperreal. Despite our infatuation with the easy simulations of the virtual, we can never make a true home there, at least not without sacrificing the qualities of sense and sensibility that make us most ourselves. Live in a simulation long enough, and you begin to think and talk like a chatbot. Your thoughts and words become the outputs of a prediction algorithm."
March 11, 2025
Makes me nostalgic for the internet of 1999.
Themes I walked away with include perception of self and others, social context, understanding reality.
Would make a great introduction to information text for iSchools.
Themes I walked away with include perception of self and others, social context, understanding reality.
Would make a great introduction to information text for iSchools.
June 5, 2025
Really eye-opening in how I personally have been psychologically shaped by the internet! Some super interesting ideas about the concept of identity, how it’s composed by both genuine introspection and internalizing other’s perceptions, and how the world of instantaneous communication diminishes the former in favor of the latter. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can be authentic rather than feel like I’m performing around others (especially new people), so it was comforting to read that pretty much all socialization is a performance.
With all the tech oligarchs showing up to Trump’s inauguration this year, I’ve made an effort this year to majorly decrease my time on most social media. This has had a positive effect on my mental health, because it helped free up time for me to pursue more focused activities that feel much more soulfully fulfilling. As someone with inattentive ADHD who easily feels stuck in my head and out of touch with my body, I’m particularly susceptible to the dopamine machine mechanics of my phone and the literal sense of disembodiment caused by digital communication. So it’s illuminating to hear that it’s a 2-way street, in which social media literally rewires our brains and thus our IRL behaviors.
With all the tech oligarchs showing up to Trump’s inauguration this year, I’ve made an effort this year to majorly decrease my time on most social media. This has had a positive effect on my mental health, because it helped free up time for me to pursue more focused activities that feel much more soulfully fulfilling. As someone with inattentive ADHD who easily feels stuck in my head and out of touch with my body, I’m particularly susceptible to the dopamine machine mechanics of my phone and the literal sense of disembodiment caused by digital communication. So it’s illuminating to hear that it’s a 2-way street, in which social media literally rewires our brains and thus our IRL behaviors.
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January 29, 2025As someone who is currently hyperfixating on how the internet and communication technologies is changing society and how we interact with each other, I was stoked to get this book. This book truly started from the beginning, discussing letters and telegrams, and the evolution of privacy standards within those industries. The author examines both the positives and negatives to the environment, and really makes you think in a new way about technologies we now use every day and in our closest relationships. I really enjoyed his examination of e-mail and how the written language has evolved through different forms of text-based communications. The end explains a few ways we could change how technology is used, but also discusses the difficulties in making those changes after we have been given such limitless access to the internet. Anyone who is interested in this area of sociology would enjoy this, and I highly recommend it.
The audio format was very well done, and it was not too academic to listen to without concentrating too hard. (iykyk)
Thank you to RBMedia and NetGalley for an audio ARC in exchange for an honest review
The audio format was very well done, and it was not too academic to listen to without concentrating too hard. (iykyk)
Thank you to RBMedia and NetGalley for an audio ARC in exchange for an honest review
April 28, 2025
Odd title for a book about the dangers of communication technology. The basic premise that every advance in communication since the telegraph basically has been viewed with trepidation by many as it was suspected to sacrifice the quality of communication for speed. By the time the author gets to the dangers of artificial intelligence and virtual reality it is frightening to contemplate. A thought provoking look at the future, a little dull at times but worth reading.
April 25, 2025
Omg, I hateeeee social media (except for Goodreads ofc).
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