The gripping and galling inside story of how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks preyed on psychological frailties to create the algorithms that drive everyday users to extreme opinions and, increasingly, extreme actions. The companies' founding tenets, combined with a blinkered focus on maximizing engagement, have led to a destabilized world for everyone. -- adapted from jacket

"Tiffany Shlain explores how turning off screens one day a week can work wonders on your brain, body, and soul."--From book jacket flap.

Leila, a sheltered young misfit, discovers an online chat forum where she feels accepted and falls under the spell of the website's charismatic founder, who entices her into assuming the stolen identity of a glamorous but desperate woman.

"Social media can be used for good or for evil. In 2018, organizers of the March for Our Lives used social media to bring roughly 500,000 people to Washington, DC, to peacefully protest against gun violence-- a powerful example of how social media can be used for good. But the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021 showed just as powerfully how social media can also be used for evil. Behavioral addiction is a mental health condition in which a person...

"This book unpacks what happens to our brains and our behaviors each time we click 'Like' or even just scroll for new content on social media. Through interviews with top influencers, the latest studies, and pop-culture anecdotes, and Dr. Boxer Wachler's own expertise as both a scientist and an influencer himself, he reveals how influence works"--

"Award-winning journalist Catherine Price presents a practical, hands-on plan to break up-- and then make up-- with your phone. The goal? A long-term relationship that actually feels good. You'll discover how phones and apps are designed to be addictive and how the time we spend on them damages our abilities to focus, think deeply, and form new memories. You'll then make customized changes to your settings, apps, environment, and mindset that will...

"Do you spend hours every day on your smartphone or tablet? Reading the news, shopping for clothes, checking your email, and catching up on social media? Do you scroll through blog articles and text with your friends while waiting in line at the DMV or the grocery store, avoiding any chance interactions with actual human beings? If so, you aren't alone. Most of us are stuck on a hedonic treadmill of push-button notifications, friend updates, and text...

"This frank and humorous guide helps teens learn how to lead a safe and healthy digital life, join the resistance, and protect themselves from Big Tech's attempted takeover of their brain, body, emotions, privacy, and future"--

Emily Weinstein and Carrie James, Harvard researchers who are experts on teens and technology, explore the complexities that teens face in their digital lives, and suggest that many adult efforts to help fall short. Drawing on a multiyear project that surveyed more than 3,500 teens, the authors explain that young people need empathy not exasperated eye-rolling. Adults should understand the complicated nature of teens' online life rather than issue...