Nicholas Carr, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart (affiliate link). New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2025. 260 pages.
The founders of major social media platforms assumed helping people communicate would inevitably make the world a better place. They were wrong.
Several years ago, I read Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows (affiliate link), which examines how the internet is shaping people’s brains. Carr’s latest book, Superbloom (affiliate link), looks at how technology, particularly social media, is affecting society. Carr gives a sweeping overview of history’s most groundbreaking advances in communication, from the postal service, to telegraphs, to radio, to TikTok. Then he addresses the issues we are facing today.
Our society highly values communication. Carr writes, “Communication, we tell ourselves, is not just what makes us special. It is the nearest thing we have to a universal remedy for personal and social ills” (19). This belief has made any attempt to regulate communication technology difficult.
The telegraph was revolutionary in its time. At the 1865 International Telegraph Conference in Paris, it was claimed that “Nothing so fosters and promotes a mutual understanding and a community of sentiment and interests . . . as cheap, speedy, and convenient communication” (22). Yet World War I demonstrated that society was unable to handle communication at an accelerated pace (23).
By the 1970s, people had access to a wide array of media options, including radios, television, books, telephones, and record players. Carr suggests that “When you chose a medium, you also chose a way of speaking. The medium was part of the conversation” (51).
The 1980s saw both a major thrust of deregulation and the advance of digitization. Whereas government had previously ruled that it was illegal to wiretap someone’s phone, “On the internet, the wiretap wouldn’t be a bug, it would be a feature” (61).
Carr observes that Facebook’s introduction of the newsfeed on September 5, 2006, was a gamechanger for social media (63). He writes, “The newsfeed unstitched Facebook’s metaphorical bindings” ( 63). People no longer had to visit their friends’ profiles to see what they had been doing. Facebook automatically shared a constant stream of information that was customized to the user’s preferences. Carr argues that this development “. . . marked the moment when machines took control of media” (76).
Today, many people simply consume the stream of news social media presents to them. Carr warns that “Whether we realize it or not, social media churns out information that has been highly processed to stimulate not just engagement but dependency” (77).
Regarding e-mail, Carr claims that it was initially viewed as an updated version of the mail system (83). Due to the associated cost, letter writing had for centuries been limited to the elites (85). The delay between reading and writing “cleared space for introspection” (87). Letter writing collapsed in 2000 as people transitioned to e-mail (88). More than 25% of adults today have never written a letter (88). With the introduction of e-mail, “An efficiency-minded approach to communication was beginning to warp the way people spoke to each other” (88).
While Boomers embraced e-mail, their Millennial children developed textspeak. Carr observes that “Writing shift[ed] from the linear and literal to the visual and symbolic” (91). By 2010, two trillion texts were being sent every year in the United States (93). Carr warns that the abbreviated language sacrifices much in depth and rigor (99). He adds, “The language we use shapes not just how we express our thoughts; it shapes the form of our thoughts. It influences how we think as well as how we talk” (100).
Interestingly, Carr notes that “Although people believe that knowing leads to liking, knowing more means liking less” (105). He cites the “online disinhibition effect,” which is people’s willingness to reveal more personal information online than they do in person (107). When it comes to social media, “Familiarity breeds contempt” (108).
Carr does not condemn social media. To him, it is merely functioning as it was intended. He references studies showing that when people are exposed to news that contradicts their own views, they become even more stringent in their beliefs (144). He argues that “In diagnosing today’s fractious political climate, we’ve been too quick to blame social media platforms for our own shortcomings” (146).
Carr also discusses AI. As AI draws on content from people, it is being shaped and formed in ways that often alarm its creators. Carr notes that AI businesses have tried to filter AI’s information so it is not offensive. Yet this process reflects the creators’ biases and political views.
In the last section, Carr responds to today’s problems. He offers hope that society, even if belatedly, has typically found a way to deal with new technologies. But after reading his overview of the history of media, one wonders if we are prepared for what is coming next.
This book is interesting. I read it as a part of my family’s book club. I’m sure we’ll have an interesting discussion about it over lunch! If you are looking for an informed, insightful perspective on the state of our culture, I think you’ll find this book helpful.
Rating: 3
