Der Kampf in den Köpfen: Wie TikTok, Instagram & Co unsere Kinder manipulieren | "So verständlich wie eindringlich." tageszeitung

by Nina Kolleck

Von Feeds, die Suizid verherrlichen, über Mutproben wie die Würge-Challenges bis hin zu Incel-Influencern, die «hegemoniale Männlichkeit» Soziale Medien bergen Gefahren für Kinder und Jugendliche, die weit über Mediensucht hinausgehen. Sie wirken vielmehr tief hinein in das soziale Verhalten und die politische Identität Heranwachsender – und beeinflussen, wie diese Beziehungen pflegen und ihre Persönlichkeit entwickeln.
Nina Kolleck bringt die sozialen und politischen Abgründe von Social Media auf den Punkt. Sie führt vor Augen, mit welchen manipulativen Algorithmen die Plattformen emotionale Bedürfnisse junger Menschen ausnutzen, Desinformation und extremistische Inhalte befeuern – und das in den Köpfen derjenigen, die die Gesellschaft von morgen prägen. Kolleck warnt vor dem Einfluss sozialer Medien auf Gehirnaktivität und Verhalten und macht sichtbar, wie TikTok & Co Erziehungs- und Bildungsfunktionen übernehmen, während Eltern und Lehrkräfte machtlos zurückbleiben. Sie Dieses Thema geht uns alle an. Wir müssen die Mechanismen von Social Media verstehen, um unsere Kinder vor Manipulation zu schützen.

219 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 13, 2026

Reviews

[Leonie]

Eine interessante Lektüre, aber viel Neues war für mich nicht dabei.

[Kuu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher and this ALC.

I have very mixed feelings about this book, to be honest.

Firstly, to imply that people just don't know what they're talking about because they confuse "Sozialisation" and "Sozialisierung" (which is a conflation I cannot even express in English because the terms are the same in English!) is also just like... idk, I feel like that's a pretty poor argument, considering that these two terms are actually THE SAME in English and in case of a spontaneous translation to German, both Sozialisation and Sozialisierung might come out as -isierung is actually a perfectly fine, well-established morphological equivalent to the English -isation. Sure, this was only a short implication, casually dropped in a paragraph which discusses how a lot of people don't know what socialisation is and use the term inflationally, but I feel like, if you're going to criticise people for misusing a term, you should actually have like... a sound argument and not one that depends on the polysemy of the English term "socialisation" and the resulting translation errors. Like, I have a degree in this, and yet I didn't know Sozialisation and Sozialisierung are different things because all I ever read about it is in English. Does that mean I don't know what I'm talking about? (Yes, this might seem nitpicky, but like... for an author who has a "smarter than thou" attitude, this author sure isn't smarter than thou.)

Also, to put AI "friends" and online friends (that are real people) on the same level is... certainly a choice to be made, but not necessarily a good one.

Generally, this book felt very surface-level, and seemed to just throw in a bunch of stuff that is somewhat related but not really, such as PornHub and other porn platforms with social media. I personally feel like these are two different conversations, though both relevant. But I would have preferred a book that goes deeper into the issues it brings up, and that is less jumpy between topics. Sure, the issues the author brings up are actual issues, but I don't feel like this book taught me anything new. I feel like all of it is already being discussed at length in various circles, so I'm not sure what this book adds to the conversation.