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Filling the Void: Emotion, Capitalism and Social media
Filling The Void is a book about how the cultures and psychology of social media use fit within a broader landscape of life under capitalism. It argues that social media use is often a psychological response to the need for pleasure and comfort that results from the stresses of life under postmodern capitalism, rather than being a driver of new behaviours as newer technologies are often said to be. Both the explosive growth of social media and the corresponding reconfiguration of the web from an information-based platform into an entertainment-based one are far more easily explained in terms of the subjective psychological experience of their users as capitalist subjects seeking 'depressive hedonia,' the book argues. Filling the Void also interrogates the role of social media networks, designed for private commercial gain, as part of a de-facto public sphere. Both the decreasing subjective importance of factual media and the ways in which the content of the timeline are quietly manipulated--often using labour in the developing world and secret algorithms--have potentially serious implications for the capacity of social media users to query or challenge the seeming reality offered by the established hegemonic order.
244 pages, Paperback
First published April 18, 2017
25 people are currently reading
820 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
March 20, 2018
Aside from being an extremely well-researched account of how social media operates in our lives, the most important contribution of this book is to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy that "social media changes us". No, says Gilroy-Ware. The much more perplexing fact is that it is us the consumers, with our need for distraction in an increasingly disorientating world, who have determined the form that social media has taken. If the likes of Zuckerberg have any role in this it is the role that any us would play if given the chance. A ready-made tool for profit and exploitation, unthinkingly crafted by the slaves themselves, has simply been handed to him. What would you do? It isn't the elite that's enslaved us. We've enslaved ourselves.
June 18, 2017
Still thinking about this. A lot of interesting arguments and criticisms about social media and capitalism. But it appears the main take away is 'stop using social media so corporations can't track you for data' which is a shame is it seemed to be leading up to a more complex argument about how we can change or struggling relationship with it.
I will keep mulling over the points and try to sumarise it better.
I will keep mulling over the points and try to sumarise it better.
September 11, 2019
My use of social media apps was making me physically sick and I needed to figure out a way to retreat back to books and to find healthier dopamine thrills. Ironically, as anxiety and depression begun to materialize in rashes and infections, I spent a lot of time in the bath tub reading this book.
It can be a heavy topic as it hits close to home for many, but it can also ease the guilt in the path to creating manageable boundaries with social media.
It can be a heavy topic as it hits close to home for many, but it can also ease the guilt in the path to creating manageable boundaries with social media.
May 19, 2023
“There are only two professions that call the people who use their products “users.” One is drug dealers, the other is us (software developers/designers).
ARAL BALKAN
There have been many good books written by many good writers on this subject, and we can safely add this to that growing pile. This is a robust and detailed take on the subject with even some newish angles which helps freshen things up.
This maybe struggles to shrug off its academic origins, but that never taints the deeper point or overwhelms the message he’s trying to get across and overall this makes for an eloquent, lucid and convincing book.
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
ARAL BALKAN
There have been many good books written by many good writers on this subject, and we can safely add this to that growing pile. This is a robust and detailed take on the subject with even some newish angles which helps freshen things up.
This maybe struggles to shrug off its academic origins, but that never taints the deeper point or overwhelms the message he’s trying to get across and overall this makes for an eloquent, lucid and convincing book.
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
February 27, 2018
" In Marxian terms, social media are both superstructure and base. There is something harsh about this scenario. Our use of social media platforms may well be injudicious, but it is compulsive and emotionally driven, born of a variety of forms of misery, while the proprietors of social networking sites are far more rational and calculating. Capitalism is invariably desperate to find new areas of surplus value, even if it means exploitation of the very emotional distress that it has itself created. In deriving value from our poor emotions themselves, and from our desire to block these out, social media represent a development of capitalism’s exploitative, dehumanising tendencies. "
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" Nearly everything is a consumable commodity, including media and culture themselves, which have become commodified into “content.” Social networks, in fact, must be understood above all as a reconfiguration of the web into a form that makes commodified media consumption as easy and as appealing as possible. But it is not enough to say that we are simply consuming media which have been commodified; this consumption is driven by some very interesting and specific processes that connect with the experience of life in a consumer society in general. Whether the content of the media is kittens, pictures of food, or highly subjective, opinion-based articles, the common thread in most timeline-based social media is that they provide an emotionally arousing experience that helps us to momentarily feel happy, sad, angry, proud, nostalgic, curious, etc. The specific nature or content of the media they encounter is only important to users of timeline media in so far as they are consuming a subjective emotional experience that provides much-needed distraction from the emotional reality in which they would otherwise find themselves, by way of a blast of affective stimulation. "
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" Nearly everything is a consumable commodity, including media and culture themselves, which have become commodified into “content.” Social networks, in fact, must be understood above all as a reconfiguration of the web into a form that makes commodified media consumption as easy and as appealing as possible. But it is not enough to say that we are simply consuming media which have been commodified; this consumption is driven by some very interesting and specific processes that connect with the experience of life in a consumer society in general. Whether the content of the media is kittens, pictures of food, or highly subjective, opinion-based articles, the common thread in most timeline-based social media is that they provide an emotionally arousing experience that helps us to momentarily feel happy, sad, angry, proud, nostalgic, curious, etc. The specific nature or content of the media they encounter is only important to users of timeline media in so far as they are consuming a subjective emotional experience that provides much-needed distraction from the emotional reality in which they would otherwise find themselves, by way of a blast of affective stimulation. "
June 5, 2017
everyone needs to read this
April 27, 2022
The primary thesis — that social media is used to fill an emotional void left by capitalism — is well argued and rings true. After reading, you'll probably use Facebook less. The only real complaint I have with this book is that many of its central ideas have by now filtered into the mainstream, so it didn't feel new, exactly. Also, the author seems obsessed with the work of Mark Fisher.
March 20, 2018
3.5, felt like I was reading a good enough paper by a sociology major student more than an actual finished book. If you have more than a passing interest in the topic most of the content won't be new but if you've never read on the topic it might be an excellent place to start.
September 1, 2022
I'd just eliminate "capitalism" from the title (suggesting people to "build an ethical social media business"?) but it's nice
March 26, 2021
A must read if u wanna stop getting shafted by the silicon big bois. it’s a horror story based on tru fact. V scary
July 22, 2019
So I finally sat down to finish this book off today, turns out I only had 5 pages left! I could have ticked this one off months ago, woops.
To be honest I found this a little hard to get into. After reading The New Dark Age (which is a fantastic book on Big Data, privacy, and much much more) this book seemed a little basic and simplistic in comparison. I also wasn't the biggest fan of Gilroy-Ware's writing, often times ideas being scrambled across pages and clumsily worded examples. His thesis is simple - that internet is bad because people are sad.
And while this is true, once you have read the book you don't feel like you've learned anything new because it's a pretty obvious statement. I was also a little bothered by his position that Facebook and the like aren't inherently responsible for political divides because people in real life were like that anyway. Like, obviously, but also there's a wealth of evidence proving indoctrination absolutely happens in online spaces due to the unsophisticated algorithms that dictate the platforms.
If you are looking for a book about the online space, I would recommend to ditch this entirely and hop straight onto The New Dark Age instead.
To be honest I found this a little hard to get into. After reading The New Dark Age (which is a fantastic book on Big Data, privacy, and much much more) this book seemed a little basic and simplistic in comparison. I also wasn't the biggest fan of Gilroy-Ware's writing, often times ideas being scrambled across pages and clumsily worded examples. His thesis is simple - that internet is bad because people are sad.
And while this is true, once you have read the book you don't feel like you've learned anything new because it's a pretty obvious statement. I was also a little bothered by his position that Facebook and the like aren't inherently responsible for political divides because people in real life were like that anyway. Like, obviously, but also there's a wealth of evidence proving indoctrination absolutely happens in online spaces due to the unsophisticated algorithms that dictate the platforms.
If you are looking for a book about the online space, I would recommend to ditch this entirely and hop straight onto The New Dark Age instead.
September 5, 2020
I think 'Filling the void: Emotion, Capitalism and Social Media' provides a comprehensive analysis of most of the problems surrounding the use of social media. It does so by providing a mixture of empirical data and philosophical deliberations. The discussion that I found most interesting was the challenging of the traditional 'deterministic' approach towards social media, often characterized as a source of negative emotions, as a cause for problems. This book challenges this hypothesis, by framing social media as a tool used to 'fill the void', as one (of many) unhealthy coping mechanisms used by society nowadays - albeit containing much more complex elements that other pre-existing coping mechanisms in our society. This shift in approach does not make the consequences out of social media use any less negative, however it plays a decisive role in framing an approach to combat (excessive) social media use, i.e not simply by reducing social media use, but by truly 'filling the void' that individuals have in our society. How to fill the void? It's not in this book; however, useful links are presented, such as to the work of Erich Fromm - The Sane Society.
March 22, 2018
Main arguments:
- Capitalism both creates emotional voids from boring work, dehumanization, pressure to perform and be famous, and profits from the offering of temporary solutions such as food porn and cat videos. Missing in the picture is meaningful relationships and life purpose.
- Capitalism is currently perceived as the only alternative to communism. Effects are both economical and cultural.
- Capitalism/Social media embeds itself in our daily lives, which causes us to shift behaviors and become dependent on an invisible, unreliable authority that claims to serve us whilst breaching our privacy and extracting data to manipulate us for further profit and dependence
- Facebook encourages false news with global repercussions via emotional dependency causing confirmation bias
- Facebook policing can revise personal history and cause social/political biases due to selective presentation and/or censorship of consumers' content
- Capitalism both creates emotional voids from boring work, dehumanization, pressure to perform and be famous, and profits from the offering of temporary solutions such as food porn and cat videos. Missing in the picture is meaningful relationships and life purpose.
- Capitalism is currently perceived as the only alternative to communism. Effects are both economical and cultural.
- Capitalism/Social media embeds itself in our daily lives, which causes us to shift behaviors and become dependent on an invisible, unreliable authority that claims to serve us whilst breaching our privacy and extracting data to manipulate us for further profit and dependence
- Facebook encourages false news with global repercussions via emotional dependency causing confirmation bias
- Facebook policing can revise personal history and cause social/political biases due to selective presentation and/or censorship of consumers' content
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 7, 2017
Very well researched book, as evidenced in the huge list of references at the back, but quite a depressing read. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t try to explore a more balanced argument, as at times it came across like a dude in a foil hat yelling “THEY’VE GOT ALL YOUR DATA MAN!”
January 27, 2018
Really liked this book and I agree with that other review that everybody needs to read it. In places I definitely felt pushed by it, even challenged, but only because it spoke truths about the way I and so many others use social media, and why. Highly recommend!
September 28, 2021
Such a well researched book looking at the pervasive nature of social media and the tools and tricks that social media companies utilised to extract more money out of your use. It was an easy read, while not dumbing down the central thesis. It is a book that a feel everyone needs to read and will find their own resonance. For me the main aspects were the pervasiveness of the neo-liberal agenda in the use of the apps and social media platforms. It’s made me question the use in a professional context where it is often used as a matter of convenience with little consideration of how our usage of the free aspects of the platform are actually driving revenue for the excessively large (under taxed) corporations. “Ultimately, since capitalism produces both technology and unhappiness, it should be no surprise when capitalism produces technologies that it exploits our unhappiness.”
Gorgeously perhaps this book, passed to me by the wonderful friend, with the book historically been left on trains with little inscriptions from the previous reader with a hope that a new stranger will pick up the book and pass it on in the same way.
The irony of posting my thoughts scratched down about a book to share on social media is not lost on me. In a context where is have seen #bookstagramers complain about their low engagements, or the lack of interest from others. For me reading has reduced the amount of time on social media, and these thoughts shared publicly I hope results in less time on social media not more, but the reality is despite how I use it….
“Social media, as businesses themselves that feed on our need to be distracted from this [capitalist] system, are the most faithful manifestations of the system of all”
February 7, 2019
Marcus Gilroy-Ware is apparently a bass-player, an irrational positive for me. He tells us his experience as a young academic (an accidental path, it appears) and writes about the experience of teaching and, of course, the topic at hand, about which he is erudite and articulate, providing many references.
Interestingly he points out that "social media" isn't really social, and brings out the issues of what I would call psychological unconsciousness in the emotional anxieties and manipulation that he identifies as part of the current situation. It's important to note that he's not a Luddite (as I might be in a number of ways) but a researcher and writer who is disclosing what this actually is, or entails, and from a left position.
This is the bast book I have read about social media and those involved in and profiting by it. It's not a polemic or jeremiad but a serious investigation.
Interestingly he points out that "social media" isn't really social, and brings out the issues of what I would call psychological unconsciousness in the emotional anxieties and manipulation that he identifies as part of the current situation. It's important to note that he's not a Luddite (as I might be in a number of ways) but a researcher and writer who is disclosing what this actually is, or entails, and from a left position.
This is the bast book I have read about social media and those involved in and profiting by it. It's not a polemic or jeremiad but a serious investigation.
April 3, 2021
Great overview written accessibly but without excluding relevant information and ideas. Not hard to read in terms of language or prior knowledge, but surprisingly dense because so many ideas from so many different fields are presented and tied into the thesis. Perfect focused approach to take to a book that says very serious about a topic that the general public is interested in. Even if you feel like you already have a good handle on the topic the fresh comparisons and ways of wording the trends it deals with can only be helpful.
I have some theoretical nitpicks but they have nothing to do with the quality of the book, which I can't imagine being a bad read for anyone who is interested in an analysis of social media. At the worst you get a well organized, straightforward presentation of at least a few dozen different valuable studies and relevant examples.
I have some theoretical nitpicks but they have nothing to do with the quality of the book, which I can't imagine being a bad read for anyone who is interested in an analysis of social media. At the worst you get a well organized, straightforward presentation of at least a few dozen different valuable studies and relevant examples.
January 31, 2023
I really wanted to like this book more than I finally did.
The main idea about the socioeconomic mechanisms that make social media so addictive and relevant on our modern societies are perfectly on point. The core of the book is still relevant 6 years after it's publication and the author seems to have a proper understanding of Materialism, worker issues and the main conflicts on late stage Capitalism.
But ever so often the books wanders on pseudo-science or totally refuted premises: the pages-long parallel between eating disorders and social media consumption, the references to the Pirahã language lack of "universal language features" (absolutely debunked since the 90s), the ocasional Psychoanalytic ramblings...
The main idea about the socioeconomic mechanisms that make social media so addictive and relevant on our modern societies are perfectly on point. The core of the book is still relevant 6 years after it's publication and the author seems to have a proper understanding of Materialism, worker issues and the main conflicts on late stage Capitalism.
But ever so often the books wanders on pseudo-science or totally refuted premises: the pages-long parallel between eating disorders and social media consumption, the references to the Pirahã language lack of "universal language features" (absolutely debunked since the 90s), the ocasional Psychoanalytic ramblings...
October 8, 2020
I don't think it has ever taken me so long to finish a book...
That is not a reflection of the writing or content. It is an incredibly interesting and insightful read. However, it is very academically and politically heavy at points. This made it one I didn't want to pick up when I was tired before bed so it got put on the backburner for a little while.
There are some interesting (albeit a bit scary) ideas in this book. It's definitely worth the read if it is a topic you are particularly interested in. I wouldn't recommend it if you are looking for a more casual read. You've definitely got to be very keen and interested to get through this one very quickly.
That is not a reflection of the writing or content. It is an incredibly interesting and insightful read. However, it is very academically and politically heavy at points. This made it one I didn't want to pick up when I was tired before bed so it got put on the backburner for a little while.
There are some interesting (albeit a bit scary) ideas in this book. It's definitely worth the read if it is a topic you are particularly interested in. I wouldn't recommend it if you are looking for a more casual read. You've definitely got to be very keen and interested to get through this one very quickly.
May 9, 2018
Like most people, I think, I picked up this book thinking it was going to be about how Social Media changes the way we think/feel and makes us become addicted to them. What surprised me was how the author shows that in reality, it's our post-capitalist society that has changed us into beings who are constantly trying to "Fill the Void" in our lives - and Social Media is the logical result to come out of this.
Although this book felt a bit more like a research paper at times, it was an insightful read.
Although this book felt a bit more like a research paper at times, it was an insightful read.
March 3, 2024
While this book is drawing a lot from arguments already made by other writers (most obviously Mark Fisher and Oliver James) its overall contribution is a sound one, mostly suggesting that it's reasonable to lump social media addiction in with other addictions like drink or drugs or junk food. Indeed, suggesting that the proliferation of *all* these addictions is a consequence of late capitalism seems persuasive, and makes me feel a little less judgemental when I feel put out by everyone stuck on their phones.
October 12, 2024
Good subject matter, but disappointing execution.
The text is plagued by academic disclaimers. Makes it feel like a dissertation. E.g. p. 74 "this book will therefore aim to situate..." Spends more time talking about he will say then he spends saying anything.
The book is insubstantial. I agreed with everything he said, but I didn't learn anything new. And his arguments aren't particularly robust or elegant. No startling insights at hand. Just boring.
Every time he quotes a theorist, their utterance is "famous". E.g. p.77 "Freud wrote famously..."
The text is plagued by academic disclaimers. Makes it feel like a dissertation. E.g. p. 74 "this book will therefore aim to situate..." Spends more time talking about he will say then he spends saying anything.
The book is insubstantial. I agreed with everything he said, but I didn't learn anything new. And his arguments aren't particularly robust or elegant. No startling insights at hand. Just boring.
Every time he quotes a theorist, their utterance is "famous". E.g. p.77 "Freud wrote famously..."
July 22, 2018
Wow, this book is a must read for anyone who has participated in social media and has oft wondered how far the tentacles of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc truly reach into our lives. This book is expertly written with well researched arguments and thought provoking debate issues. I devoured the experience of reading this book and would implore anyone with any sense of questioning to read it too, you won't be disappointed.
August 19, 2020
Sometimes it feels like people write books just because they think they should or because they happen to know a lot about a subject. Those types of books typically aren’t thoughtfully organized and tend to ramble.
This is not one of those books. It has a meaningful message and the way it is laid out is straightforward and makes sense and I do appreciate it.
Do yourself a favor and look up “determinism” and “positivism” before you start reading it though 😂
This is not one of those books. It has a meaningful message and the way it is laid out is straightforward and makes sense and I do appreciate it.
Do yourself a favor and look up “determinism” and “positivism” before you start reading it though 😂
December 8, 2019
Some genuinely interesting points but a lot of it felt repetitive (which I've come to find with books that tackle this issue) and I felt like a lot was left unanswered. He'd be like:
"Here's this interesting point. Let's list some affects it has. Why does this thing have these affects? I don't know, but it's important to think about. Keep an eye on that in the future."
"Here's this interesting point. Let's list some affects it has. Why does this thing have these affects? I don't know, but it's important to think about. Keep an eye on that in the future."
January 15, 2020
3.5 stars. The first two thirds, while mostly interesting, were also a bit of a drag to get through - but are proven worthwhile in the last third, where the book really took off. I found myself wishing there were more of the author’s incisive conclusions to continue reading by the end!
April 14, 2018
Interesting ideas that are being played out by the Trump administration.
July 24, 2018
Goodie
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews