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elizapills's review against another edition
4.0
Brilliant and terrifying, if a little over my head. The book is about a problem; do not expect a solution. The revelation is that I am absolutely a neo-Luddite, but the irony does not escape me that I'm posting this book review on a social industry platform.
kimchifairy's review
A lot of books on the theft of our time by social media, the impoverishment of modern relationships, the rise of a so-called post-truth era, tend to suffer from the daunting scope of the problem. Seymour doesn't quite avoid this, and as a result this is a rather thetically diffuse book; it's compellingly written and argued, though, particularly good on the inevitable far-right co-opting of the social industry.
sushmita_reads's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.5
Made some good points, but very dense and felt like every second sentence was a reference to someone else's work which was exhausting to read. Boring but important.
rooafza's review against another edition
4.0
All Technology is neither good nor bad; nor neutral
Twittering Machine (Die Zwitscher-Maschine) by Paul Klee, 1922.
Twitter as Lacan's 'Modern Calculating Machine' - a machine "far more dangerous than the atom bomb" because it can defeat any opponent by calculating, with sufficient data, the unconscious axioms that govern a person's behaviour. We write to the machine, it collects and aggreagates our desires and fantasies, segments them by market and demographic and sells them back to us as a commodity experience.
Similar treatment of social media addiction to Gabor Mate's "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" which contextualizes drug addiction as arising in social and spiritual poverty.
Posting as gambling. Gambling rituals present in a lot of religious cultures - I Ching, tea leaves etc. When we post, we are asking for judgement. Posting is both a gamble and an attempt at divination.
Social Media as the Chronophage - the monster that eats time itself. The same as that in the Prince of Persia games.
Ultimately no addiction is "ever explained by examining the drug". Breaking the addiction requires a "creative leap". It cannot originate in a one-off decision or a mere epiphany. It is, according to Seymour, "a process of becoming different" whether through psychotherapy, religious conversion or learning a new art or skill. Neuroplasticity ensures that recovering addicts don't simply get back what they lost: "they tend to develop entirely new and more sophisticated capacities. New ways of being in the world".
Twittering Machine (Die Zwitscher-Maschine) by Paul Klee, 1922.
Twitter as Lacan's 'Modern Calculating Machine' - a machine "far more dangerous than the atom bomb" because it can defeat any opponent by calculating, with sufficient data, the unconscious axioms that govern a person's behaviour. We write to the machine, it collects and aggreagates our desires and fantasies, segments them by market and demographic and sells them back to us as a commodity experience.
Similar treatment of social media addiction to Gabor Mate's "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" which contextualizes drug addiction as arising in social and spiritual poverty.
Posting as gambling. Gambling rituals present in a lot of religious cultures - I Ching, tea leaves etc. When we post, we are asking for judgement. Posting is both a gamble and an attempt at divination.
Social Media as the Chronophage - the monster that eats time itself. The same as that in the Prince of Persia games.
Ultimately no addiction is "ever explained by examining the drug". Breaking the addiction requires a "creative leap". It cannot originate in a one-off decision or a mere epiphany. It is, according to Seymour, "a process of becoming different" whether through psychotherapy, religious conversion or learning a new art or skill. Neuroplasticity ensures that recovering addicts don't simply get back what they lost: "they tend to develop entirely new and more sophisticated capacities. New ways of being in the world".
themorsecode's review against another edition
4.0
Very thoughtful study of social media, reminds me of the work of Lawrence Scott how Seymour applies philosophical ideas and concepts to our modern online age.
mylesburrell's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.5
This has made me feel very guilty, but also inspired.
lynnannwalsh's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
1st half of the book felt gripping, while the 2nd half felt slow-paced and ended speculatively, without a real solution to the Twittering Machine’s addictive qualities.