Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’ll disclaim this all with the fact that I agree with the thesis statement: I think “BUMMER” is (unknowingly?) building incentives for us to tear ourselves apart, both individually and collectively. I’ve deleted all but one BUMMER account and am actively working on decoupling from that last one.
That being said, this isn’t a very good book. It’s scattershot, lacks a strong throughline, feels faintly of choir-preaching, and is deeply partisan (despite occasionally signalling that it isn’t).
This obvious bias is normally merely annoying. But, when the author continually admonishes people to be “cats” not “wolves” and bemoans worldview bubbles and tribalism, his inability to see the worldview outside of that of a (let’s face it) very well-defined and mainstream tribe is more than a bit offputting. This lens acts a bit like lead poisoning: you don’t notice (or don’t mind) the little at first, but it accumulates and (not being flushed out or counteracted) becomes toxic halfway through the book. By then, I had trouble with the author’s credibility.
Still, the book contains several useful insights and might be worth a read if you don’t mind the failings mentioned above; the analogy of digital noise as a DDOS attack alone is profound.