Reviews - Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

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Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Olipas vauhdikas rantti! Kirjoittaja kuvaa somealgoritmien ja mainoksilla pyörivän kapitalismin ongelmia. Kuuntelin kirjan sen jälkeen, kun olin poistanut Twitterin puhelimestani. Tämän teoksen jälkeen se tuskin tulee enää takaisin sovellusvalikoimaan. Toki teos laittoi tarkastelemaan muutoinkin omaa suhdettaan sosiaaliseen mediaan. Olisin kaivannut hieman enemmän pohdintaa ja spekulaatiota vaihtoehtoisista markkinarakenteista ja aiheeseen liittyvästä lainsäädännöstä eri puolilla maailmaa.

rainydays08's review against another edition

4.0

So we're basically lab rats being used to collect data on the human experience by tech corporations so they can more realistically program AI to destroy us all? Bummer.

usrbinry4n's review against another edition

4.0

hopeful informative fast-paced

Book Review: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by [a:Jaron Lanier|3010868|Jaron Lanier|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1374281772p2/3010868.jpg]

BUMMER: Behaviors of Users Modified and Made into an Empire for Rent

Jaron Lanier’s book is not just a call to quit social media—it’s a deep, urgent argument about the cost of being human in a system designed to modify your behavior without your consent. Lanier, a tech insider and virtual reality pioneer, offers ten sharp reasons why social media as it currently operates is fundamentally toxic—not because the internet is bad, but because BUMMER is.

BUMMER is a six-part machine:

Attention Acquisition – grabbing and monetizing your focus
Butting In – constant, intrusive notifications and interruptions
Cramming Content – stuffing users with algorithmic sludge
Directing Behavior – subtle nudges that reshape actions
Earning Money – profiting off outrage, disinformation, and division
Fake Mobs and Society – fostering synthetic conflict and false consensus

“Your character is like your health, more valuable than anything you can buy. Don’t throw it away.”

Lanier is concerned not with technology itself, but with how it's used to exploit psychological vulnerabilities. He shows how social media addiction leads to anhedonia—a loss of joy and pleasure in life—and a drop in self-esteem, especially among young users. “You might be at risk for self-harm in proportion to your social media use,” he warns, “especially if you're a young woman.”

“This constant dosing of social anxiety only gets people more glued in.”

At the heart of the problem is what Lanier calls the “judgment machine”—algorithms that rank, measure, and feed you based on what gets clicks, not what builds truth or community. In this system, your personal data fuels engagement, and your feeds are shaped not for your benefit, but for someone else’s profit.

Lanier also levels a sharp critique of AI, calling it a “fantasy” that has “overtaken its authors.” Once a tool for grant money and sci-fi dreaming, AI has become a myth used to justify opaque systems that manipulate rather than serve.

“The internet itself is not the problem.”

This book is not anti-technology. Lanier’s vision is ultimately hopeful: we can imagine and build a better digital world—but not if we stay complicit in the one that profits from our worst impulses. If you've ever felt a hollow ache after scrolling, or sensed yourself becoming more anxious, reactive, or performative online, this book explains why.

Read it, and then maybe—log off.