Superbloom

The prolific tech writer Nicholas Carr has penned some of the most memorable books I've read over the past fifteen years. The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google drew fascinating parallels between electricity and cloud computing. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains helped me understand the great and dangerous rewiring taking place. His track record is solid, and I decided to give his latest effort a read.

Once again, Carr tackles a timely and compelling subject in Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart. (The book's title stems from a 2019 Instagram meme and the inevitable fallout.)

Illuminating Research: How We Got to Now

Theorists have opined about the effects of new communication technologies for millennia. Yes, Superbloom provides the obligatory hat tip to Marshall McLuhan, but it also unearths plenty of surprises. As it turns out, lesser-known contributors were decades or even a century ahead of their time. One example is the prescient work of the American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley. The man coined the term social media in—ready for this?—an 1897 article.