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Book Review: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

I recently (actually weeks or months ago now) finished reading "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" by Jaron Lanier.  This short book covers what is quite possibly one of the biggest issues of the current era, the toxic influence of "social media" on individuals and culture at large.

The book raises issues about more than purely "social media" sites like Facebook and Twitter, attacking the business model that many web services are operated on.  I can't bring myself to fully agree with every point raised by Lanier. 

Ten chapters present ten different arguments for why you should opt out of most of interactions happening on the internet today.  However, I believe they can be summarized in two key points.

Social media is bad for your health.  Your emotional, social, psychological and spiritual well being are degraded by the use of social media.  These sites tend to reduce our ability to have empathy, increase irritability and all around turn us into jerks.  All this adds to stress, which is notoriously bad for our physical health as well.

Fake users and "artificial intelligence" (which the author points are is just a term we throw around for a particularly smartly written software) have some impact on the very idea of what it means to be a person.  Additionally, advertising has the nearly explicit goal of behavior modification.  Couple this with individually curated "feeds" and it is a recipe for taking away mental free will. 

Lanier also makes the argument that current tech culture is creating a new religion of sorts where the singularity is the ultimate goal.

Social media is bad for our communities.  Global and local communities   Fake news accounts and other bad actors intentionally manipulate people into believing untrue things (alternative facts).  When Truth is hard to discover underneath a thick layer of uncertainty and fiction how can society as a whole make clear decisions?  How can democracy continue to make progress with misinformation being spread with the assistance of mass behavior/thought manipulation tools?

In Lanier's argument that's what social media platforms and indeed all advertising are, is mass behavior manipulation tools.  Part of the argument against these platforms is not that they are bad on their own.  Sharing and connecting with friends and family as well as the global community are a good thing.  Much of the argument for deleting your accounts now is that the business model these platforms are built on needs to be better.  For example the users on Facebook create the content which other users come to see, building the platform and making it attractive to advertisers.  However, the average Facebook user creating this content does not get compensated for it in any way other than having the ability to participate on this platform.

I'd recommend this book to anyone on the fence about whether or not continuing to participate in social media sites is good for them personally or for society as a whole.  It is an easy read and intriguing.  Lanier has many years of experience in the tech industry and comes from a fairly unique perspective.

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