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 commentator on the human consequences of technology Nicholas Carr
reorients the conversation around modern communication challenging some of our most cherished
beliefs about self-expression free speech and media democratization. He reveals how messaging
apps strip nuance from conversation how "digital crowding" erodes empathy and triggers
aggression how online political debates narrow our minds and distort our perceptions and how
advances in AI are further blurring the already hazy line between fantasy and reality. Even as
Carr shows how tech companies and their tools of connection have failed us he forces us to
confront inconvenient truths about our own nature. The human psyche it turns out is
profoundly ill-suited to the "superbloom" of information that technology has unleashed. With
rich psychological insights and vivid examples drawn from history and science Superbloom
provides both a panoramic view of how media shapes society and an intimate examination of the
fate of the self in a time of radical dislocation. It may be too late to change the system
Carr counsels but it's not too late to change ourselves
