Social Warming

Download or read book Social Warming written by Charles Arthur and published by Oneworld Publications. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An impassioned exploration of the ways in which social media has manipulated us all ‘Witty, rigorous, and as urgent as a fire alarm’ Dorian Lynskey ‘Cooly prosecutorial’ Guardian Nobody meant for this to happen. Facebook didn’t mean to facilitate a genocide. Twitter didn’t want to be used to harass women. YouTube never planned to radicalise young men. But with billions of users, these platforms need only tweak their algorithms to generate more ‘engagement’. In so doing, they bring unrest to previously settled communities and erode our relationships. Social warming has happened gradually – as a by-product of our preposterously convenient digital existence. But the gradual deterioration of our attitudes and behaviour on- and offline – this vicious cycle of anger and outrage – is real. And it can be corrected. Here’s how.