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Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
From the author of The Shallows, a bracing exploration of how social media has warped our sense of self and society.
From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Superbloom tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.
A celebrated interpreter of technology’s impacts on human life, Nicholas Carr guides the reader through the dark trends that have always shadowed how telegrams disrupted diplomacy, how radio aided autocrats, how the Facebook feed sowed division, how AI now blurs reality and fantasy. With vivid examples from history, science, and politics, Superbloom unmasks a fundamental flaw in our perception of, and revolutionizes our understanding of, how media shapes society. It may be too late to curb the “superbloom” of information—but it’s not too late to change ourselves.
From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Superbloom tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.
A celebrated interpreter of technology’s impacts on human life, Nicholas Carr guides the reader through the dark trends that have always shadowed how telegrams disrupted diplomacy, how radio aided autocrats, how the Facebook feed sowed division, how AI now blurs reality and fantasy. With vivid examples from history, science, and politics, Superbloom unmasks a fundamental flaw in our perception of, and revolutionizes our understanding of, how media shapes society. It may be too late to curb the “superbloom” of information—but it’s not too late to change ourselves.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published January 28, 2025
300 people are currently reading
4210 people want to read
About the author
Nicholas Carr
19 books1,062 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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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.
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.
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
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
April 3, 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."
"On the internet, the wiretap would not be a bug; it would be a feature."
"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."
—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.
"On the internet, the wiretap would not be a bug; it would be a feature."
"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."
—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.
February 27, 2025
I fear this cured my insta addiction
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
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 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.
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 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?
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.
Read
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
February 28, 2025
Current, fascinating, and immensely thought provoking.
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.
February 15, 2025
The more we use communication technologies, the more we become like them. Our nervous systems adapt to the logic of their designs (Carr 8). After enough time, these “mechanisms of communication” reinforce certain aspects of our human nature over others (Carr 9).
As Nicholas Carr wrote in The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, technologies (such as the Internet) influence our minds, especially the more they are embedded in society:
When we begin using a new intellectual technology, we don’t immediately switch from one mental mode to another. The brain isn’t binary. An intellectual technology exerts its influence by shifting the emphasis of our thought. Although even the initial users of the technology can often sense the changes in their patterns of attention, cognition, and memory as their brains adapt to the new medium, the most profound shifts play out more slowly, over several generations, as the technology becomes ever more embedded in work, leisure, and education — in all the norms and practices that define a society and its culture. (197)
While media theorists such as Marshall McLuhan focused on how these technologies shape our consciousness, sociologists such as Charles Horton Cooley examined how they influence society as a whole (Carr 9).
For Cooley, communication technologies promote certain values, beliefs, and norms (Carr 9) They are a means for regulating our beliefs and behavior; giving us models for conduct and character; and establishing our hierarchies of status and power (Carr 9). For McLuhan, we gradually fit the characteristics of the technologies we use (Carr 83). Every medium is an environment that changes our perceptions, thoughts, and feelings (Carr 7).
It doesn’t just matter what we communicate but how we communicate. The mediums we incorporate into our lives are about more than sending and receiving information. They profoundly influence our “social mind” (Carr 9).
These technologies have never been neutral. They are deeply political. Those who control them have the means to alter our thinking and behavior (Carr 11). The internet influences us on a societal level, shaping the news stories we read and the candidates we choose to vote for. Using these tools comes with consequences that we are not always prepared to handle.
As power becomes concentrated, those in charge want to control the flow of information (Carr 46). On the Internet, corporations such as Meta and Twitter filter the content that we regularly engage with (Carr 78). They encourage certain forms of communication while discouraging others. What they choose to show is intertwined with their own motivations, desires, values, assumptions, and biases. This can often lead to them silencing dissenting voices, spreading misinformation, and suppressing facts that conflict with their narratives. Ultimately, they are going to act in their own interests while presenting their decisions as beneficial to society.
We are being manipulated to spend as much time as possible on these technologies. Social media sites in particular exploit our vulnerabilities. As human beings, we are compelled to communicate with each other and seek out novelty. These mediums play into our ravenous desire for new information and experience.
As Nicholas Carr wrote in The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, we are both indulged and distracted by the stimuli of the Net. While our working memories are disrupted and we only develop a superficial understanding of what we consume, we can’t help but want more:
Our use of the Internet involves many paradoxes, but the one that promises to have the greatest long-term influence over how we think is this one: the Net seizes our attention only to scatter it. We focus intensively on the medium itself, on the flickering screen, but we’re distracted by the medium’s rapid-fire delivery of competing messages and stimuli. Whenever and wherever we log on, the Net presents us with an incredibly seductive blur. Human beings “want more information, more impressions, and more complexity,” writes Torkel Klingberg, the Swedish neuroscientist. We tend to “seek out situations that demand concurrent performance or situations in which [we] are overwhelmed with information.” If the slow progression of words across printed pages dampened our craving to be inundated by mental stimulation, the Net indulges it. It returns us to our native state of bottom-up distractedness, while presenting us with far more distractions than our ancestors ever had to contend with. (Carr 118, 124)
Our lives are shaped by these tools so much that we have come to resemble them. Instead of meeting up with our friends offline, we find it more convenient to talk to them online. We become accustomed to the comfort of easy access. While we communicate on the Internet with words and images, we miss out on subtle gestures, expressions, and glances — physical cues that are necessary for us to develop our social skills (Carr 110). The more we depend on social media, the more we have trouble feeling empathy toward others, even after we go offline (Carr 110).
As Nicholas Carr wrote in Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, the Internet can negatively impact our ability to read emotions:
Sherry Turkle, an MIT social psychologist who has been studying how people communicate through computers for decades, has described social media as an “anti-empathy machine.” She argues that we suppress our capacity for empathy by “putting ourselves in environments where we’re not looking at each other in the eye, not sticking with the other person long enough or hard enough to follow what they’re feeling.” Over the long run, she says, a dependency on online communication can reduce people’s ability to feel empathy in general, making them less empathetic even when they’re not on their phone or computer. Even their self-awareness can be blunted. “Research shows that those who use social media the most have difficulty reading human emotions, including their own.” (110)
Several studies show that the more time we spend online, the more likely we are to feel anxious, lonely, and depressed (Carr 173). During our adolescence, we are even more susceptible to these conditions, which may extend into our adulthood (Carr 172, 173).
When we are on the Internet, we are overwhelmed by “a profusion of sensory stimuli” (Carr 115). This can make us socially claustrophobic — as if we are being surrounded by people everywhere:
There are no bodies online, but there are myriad presences. With everyone pressing their virtual flesh on everyone else all the time, the communicative life becomes more extensive, and more oppressive, than it is in even the most densely populated of cities. (Carr 115)
Our information processing skills become more shallow as well. We get distracted constantly, skimming through text, searching for the next reward in an endless feed. We rely on intuitive mental shortcuts (heuristics) to make sense of our changing environment (Carr 131). But as a result, we become set in how we consume information, no longer relying on solitude for gradual answers. Repeated exposure to the efficiency of the Internet only makes us want to speed up our information-processing abilities, which in turn, leaves us impulsive and irrational (Carr 148).
Novel messages spread more quickly through social media, even if they are not true (Carr 138). The faster they spread, the more influential they become. The more influential they become, the more we tend to believe in them:
As the Cognition authors, who verified the phenomenon in an online setting through two experiments of their own, concluded, “repeated exposure to misinformation” is likely to “create a vicious circle in which misinformation will be perceived as true and therefore shared more.” (Carr 138)
The Internet takes advantage of our attraction to divisiveness (Carr 143). We are hooked by the latest controversies. Social media platforms, such as Facebook, often exacerbate our political polarization because the algorithms calculate that is what “strengthens user engagement and ‘increases time on the platform’” (Carr 142, 143).
On our own social media profiles, we are creating personas, carefully constructed social selves, based on our awareness of how others perceive us. Our real experiences turn into content for an audience. We modulate our tone, language, and behavior to seem favorable to our followers (Carr 159). If our posts are acceptable, we are rewarded with external validation in the form of likes, comments, and shares. Over time, we present ourselves in a particular way to receive positive reinforcement while diminishing negative reinforcement.
Our cell phones have become “extensions of our nervous systems” (Carr 213). If we have social media apps on our devices, we are never truly offline, never more than a second away from being evaluated by other online users. Because of our constant connection, we avoid the struggle of sitting in silence, contemplating deeply, and experiencing long bouts of boredom.
Instead we are regularly thinking about how we are going to be perceived. We trade our privacy for attention. We compare ourselves to other users while never feeling like we are enough. The more that we associate with our online images, the more our data fits into neat little categories that can be used by corporations and governments (Carr 177).
While we often create content to share on social media, now our machines are developing content too. Generative AI is taking on the role of writer, painter, musician, filmmaker, and teacher. Our past ideas are being mined (often without our consent) and being turned into cheap material for consumption (Carr 190). Counterfeit videos, images, and words are being presented in the media, making us question what is really real (Carr 198).
Nicholas Carr wrote in Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart that when we can no longer trust what is objectively true anymore, it is beneficial for authoritarian regimes and harmful for a functioning democracy:
As truth decays, so too will trust. That would have profound political implications. A world of doubt and uncertainty is good for autocrats and bad for democracy, Chesney and Citron argue. “Authoritarian regimes and leaders with authoritarian tendencies benefit when objective truths lose their power.” In George Orwell’s 1984, the functionaries in Big Brother’s Ministry of Truth spend their days rewriting historical records, discarding inconvenient old facts and making up new ones. When the truth gets hazy, tyrants get to define what’s true. (198)
Social media is an effective tool for those in power. They can enforce their ideologies through what they select for us to see and not see. We are constantly exposed to their filtered versions of reality, but not reality itself. And when authoritarian regimes take control, we are especially vulnerable to their lies, misinformation, censorship, and surveillance. It is already happening.
Rather than escaping from our technologies, we are even more addicted to them. Rather than breaking up these monopolistic entities, or regulating them, they are only gaining more wealth and power. We try to slow down but we can’t resist indulging in the next hit of stimuli. We are social animals who need to belong, check our status, and look for the newest information (Carr 217). But what is the cost?
While the offline world tames our impulses to a degree, the Internet doesn’t have the same limitations. We have been conditioned to crave, to desire, while never feeling fully satisfied.
Because it has been so easy for us to gorge on information, we have neglected the slow joy of finding things out in solitude. Instead of grappling with our restlessness, boredom, and angst, we have let ourselves become distracted by shallow entertainment (Carr 220). But in doing so, we may have lost an important part of what makes us human.
References:
Carr, Nicholas. Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart. E-Book. United States, W. W. Norton, 2025.
Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. E-Book. United Kingdom, W. W. Norton, 2011.
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.
March 1, 2025
3.5 stars. I greatly enjoyed the second half of this book, particularly Part 3 which was focused on a critique of modern technological use, backed strongly by different studies and philosophers and sociologists. However, I found the first half of the book boring where it focused on explaining different technologies throughout time since that generally seemed to be common knowledge (although the occasional commentary and stories related to the technology were interesting).
May 21, 2025
very, very cool book. an in-depth look at the evolution of media and communication and how our society has responded to said evolutions. nothing groundbreaking or particularly surprising, but enjoyable and insightful nonetheless. many of my gut reactions to social media and the like were vindicated. literally go touch grass
March 9, 2025
Carr tackles an important topic in this book. My recommendation though would be to read The Shallows and The Glass Cage first though since I think he makes a better and stronger case for his arguments in those books.
April 14, 2025
Many important insights, muddled by the need to be overly comprehensive.
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