Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart

The power of the feed algorithm doesn’t lie in the meaning of the messages it delivers—the algorithm knows nothing of meaning—but rather in its ability to match messages to individuals’ emotional triggers. It automates the striking of responsive chords.

Language, writes Karen Armstrong, a religion scholar and former nun, “is not only a vital means of communication, but it helps us to articulate and clarify the incoherent turbulence of our inner world.”14 Even the most ineffable experiences are quickly translated into words by the mind. Moment by moment, we speak ourselves into being. And then, tur

In forming opinions and casting votes, people are motivated much less by political ideology than by group identity.45 Opinions emerge from affiliation, not vice versa. People may like to believe that their political views reflect a careful, reasoned analysis of the issues, but usually they’re by-products of tribal allegiance. They’re rooted in emot

What we gain by substituting fingered speech for reading and writing is the ability to keep up with a conversation that swirls around us all the time. What we sacrifice are depth and rigor. Turned always outward, speech becomes less a way of sorting out our thoughts, of thinking for ourselves, and more a way of reacting to others. We rely on quick

Iris Murdoch, in her 1957 essay “Metaphysics and Ethics,” put it expansively: “Man is a creature who makes pictures of himself and then comes to resemble the picture.”

The public-interest standard is more than a legal principle. It’s an ethical principle. It ensures the people’s right to have a say in the workings of the institutions and systems that shape their lives, a right fundamental to a true democracy and a just society. The vagueness of the standard is necessary for a simple reason: in a pluralistic socie

“When man is overwhelmed by information,” Marshall McLuhan saw, “he resorts to myth. Myth is inclusive, time-saving, and fast.”

In 1919, Lippmann wrote a despairing essay in the Atlantic Monthly titled “The Basic Problem of Democracy.” Democracy’s founding ideal—that of a well-informed citizenry capable of making reasoned judgments about national problems and plans—had come into being in a much simpler time, he argued, when most concerns were local and people had direct exp

The history of technological progress shows that once people adapt to greater efficiency in any practice or process, reductions in efficiency, whatever the rationale, feel intolerable. The public is rarely willing to suffer delays and nuisances once it has been relieved of them. In a culture programmed for ease, speed, and diversion, friction is th