Jaron Lanier: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (2019, Penguin Random House)
176 pages
English language
Published Aug. 13, 2019 by Penguin Random House.
This book encouraged me to quit all social media ruled by big tech companies. I couldn't decide whether to remove my Twitter until I met this book, but the decision definately improved my QOL.
I wish I read this earlier. This came out in 2018 and has lots to say about Silicon Valley, Facebook, Twitter, Cambridge Analytica, state actors, and the US 2016 Election.
If you wondered, as I have, if your real-life friends were assholes all the time and were eager to
shunt all or most of their communications with you to a social space that rewarded them for
releasing their inner trolls, to block or mute or unfollow you if you presented a contrary position
or a fact-based refutation of their claims, that nurtured their narcissism, or if they were
conditioned and manipulated by entities paying commoditized, centralized social media platforms,
made addicts to immediate feedback both negative and positive, this book provides evidence of
the latter.
I read this because I was asked to write something to coincide with a re-broadcast online of a talk Lanier did about the book in 2018.
While I think Lanier does an OK job of outlining some of what's fucked about social media, this book suffers from the same delusion of Zuboff's surveillance capitalism: treating what social media does as an anomaly to capitalism, rather than a logical extension/stage of it. Lanier's pretty libertarian so it makes sense that his theory of change and his arguments for quitting social media are so "you, the reader" focused rather than collective imperatives. But much like "quitting" capitalism, quitting social media is something that requires either tremendous sacrifice or privilege to do as an individual and only really means an individual feels OK without necessarily contributing to anyone else's well-being.
In terms of readability it's not very jargon-y and relatively self-aware, but there …
I read this because I was asked to write something to coincide with a re-broadcast online of a talk Lanier did about the book in 2018.
While I think Lanier does an OK job of outlining some of what's fucked about social media, this book suffers from the same delusion of Zuboff's surveillance capitalism: treating what social media does as an anomaly to capitalism, rather than a logical extension/stage of it. Lanier's pretty libertarian so it makes sense that his theory of change and his arguments for quitting social media are so "you, the reader" focused rather than collective imperatives. But much like "quitting" capitalism, quitting social media is something that requires either tremendous sacrifice or privilege to do as an individual and only really means an individual feels OK without necessarily contributing to anyone else's well-being.
In terms of readability it's not very jargon-y and relatively self-aware, but there is definitely a low-key "I'm actually the smartest boy in the room" vibe to the entire book despite some very sweeping generalizations and mostly personal experience based arguments. I'd also second Mouse's point in their review about the weak citations (how is anyone referencing the Stanford Prison Experiment as a legitimate study?).
This was such a frustrating read because I agree with so many of the problems he identifies with social media, but I found his reasoning deeply flawed.
To the extent that this is a diatribe about how unpleasant social media is in his personal experience, I was mostly onboard, but the difference, I think, between a rant and a book is rigor.
His citations were mostly news articles and wikipedia entries, and he relies heavily on a superficial understanding of popular, flawed studies like the Stanford Prison Experiment. He makes bold, sweeping, and imprecise statements about the a number of things, particularly the nature of addiction and how addicts behave, without any backup or indication that he is speaking in any way besides entirely off the cuff.
I was disappointed as well in how stuck his reasoning is within the frame of capitalism and tech solutionism.
