Nicholas Carr: Why Social Media Has Made Us So Anti-social

There’s a simple reason that fake stories get more attention on social media than real ones. They’re more surprising. By the time the truth gets out, no one seems to care. And what happens when machines create the content, choose who sees it, and deliver it? Will they determine that real stories get better results than fake ones?

If you work in media, you’ll probably do more nodding along than shaking your head while reading Nicholas Carr’s newest book, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart (Norton). Carr is the author of The Shallows, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and former executive editor of Harvard Business Review. He’s also a writer for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Superbloom isn’t just a book for people who work in media. Far from it. In fact, we all live in the media world now. The book’s title comes from how the selfie-seekers of Walker Canyon, California, created chaos around poppies blooming. As Carr opens with this story, you can see why he writes, “By turning us all into media personalities, social media has also turned us all into rivals.”

We had a lot to cover, from AI to social media to how fashion influencers became the heirs to Martin Luther. We even discuss where Carr sees hope today.