Based on solid research, this is a disturbing examination of the destructive impact of social media.
A study of how social media has become a driver of division and hatred.
When the internet first appeared, many observers thought it would bring people together through the exchange of information, news, and opinions. While that is true, it has also become a collection of dangerous echo chambers where minor disagreements quickly escalate into savage confrontations. Rose-Stockwell, a journalist specializing in technology issues, delves into how this happened. There are evolutionary reasons, he notes, for the human brain to focus on urgent, emotional signals, and a crucial aspect of civilization is that it tamps down instinctive responses in favor of moderation and tolerance. Social media aims at the primal parts of the psyche, including a desire to be part of a tribal in-group. The companies that run social media quickly realized that there was money to be made by promoting extremism on both sides of the political spectrum and, conversely, little profit in asking people to think rather than feel. Rose-Stockwell examines the key words, phrases, images, and ideas that are used to keep people glued to their screens, simmering with anger and fear. Eventually, the brain accepts outrage as the norm, and social ties contract to a small circle of the like-minded. The author suggests ways to reverse this pattern—e.g., think before you post, keep track of how much time you spend on social media, and seek to build relationships instead of shouting at strangers. These are solid ideas, but there is a sense of too little, too late. Like most addictions, the process of recovery begins with an acceptance that there is a problem, and it seems unlikely that the chronically outraged would do that. There is a way out of the anger trap, but you have to want to leave. Rose-Stockwell capably diagnoses the illness, but the remedy remains elusive.
Based on solid research, this is a disturbing examination of the destructive impact of social media.Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9780306923326
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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