The hype machine : how social media disrupts our elections, our economy, and our health--and how we must adapt /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Currency, 2020Copyright date: 2020Edition: First editionDescription: xv, 390 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780525574514
- 0525574514
- 303.48/33 23
- 302.231
- 23
- HM741 .A73 2020
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Nonfiction | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | 303.4833 ARAL (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022724541 | |||
Standard Loan | Hayden Library Recently Returned | Hayden Library | Book | 303.48/ARAL (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022794098 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
A landmark insider's tour of how social media affects our decision-making and shapes our world in ways both useful and dangerous, with critical insights into the social media trends of the 2020 election and beyond
"The book might be described as prophetic. . . . At least two of Aral's three predictions have come to fruition."-- New York
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY WIRED * LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD
Social media connected the world--and gave rise to fake news and increasing polarization. It is paramount, MIT professor Sinan Aral says, that we recognize the outsize effect social media has on us--on our politics, our economy, and even our personal health--in order to steer today's social technology toward its great promise while avoiding the ways it can pull us apart.
Drawing on decades of his own research and business experience, Aral goes under the hood of the most powerful social networks to tackle the critical question of just how much social media actually shapes our choices, for better or worse. He shows how the tech behind social media offers the same set of behavior influencing levers to everyone who hopes to change the way we think and act--from Russian hackers to brand marketers--which is why its consequences affect everything from elections to business, dating to health. Along the way, he covers a wide array of topics, including how network effects fuel Twitter's and Facebook's massive growth, the neuroscience of how social media affects our brains, the real consequences of fake news, the power of social ratings, and the impact of social media on our kids.
In mapping out strategies for being more thoughtful consumers of social media, The Hype Machine offers the definitive guide to understanding and harnessing for good the technology that has redefined our world overnight.
Includes bibliographical references (pages [327]-365) and index.
The New Social Age -- The End of Reality -- The Hype Machine -- Your Brain on Social Media -- A Network's Gravity is Proportional to Its Mass -- Personalized Mass Persuasion -- Hypersocialization -- Strategies for a Hypersocialized World -- The Attention Economy and the Tyranny of Trends -- The Wisdom and Madness of Crowds -- Social Media's Promise Is Also Its Peril -- Building a Better Hype Machine.
"Social media connected the world--and gave rise to fake news and increasing polarization. Now a leading researcher at MIT draws on 20 years of research to show how these trends threaten our political, economic, and emotional health in this eye-opening exploration of the dark side of technological progress. Today we have the ability, unprecedented in human history, to amplify our interactions with each other through social media. It is paramount, MIT social media expert Sinan Aral says, that we recognize the outsized impact social media has on our culture, our democracy, and our lives in order to steer today's social technology toward good, while avoiding the ways it can pull us apart. Otherwise, we could fall victim to what Aral calls "The Hype Machine." As a senior researcher of the longest-running study of fake news ever conducted, Aral found that lies spread online farther and faster than the truth--a harrowing conclusion that was featured on the cover of Science magazine. Among the questions Aral explores following twenty years of field research: Did Russian interference change the 2016 election? And how is it affecting the vote in 2020? Why does fake news travel faster than the truth online? How do social ratings and automated sharing determine which products succeed and fail? How does social media affect our kids? First, Aral links alarming data and statistics to three accelerating social media shifts: hyper-socialization, personalized mass persuasion, and the tyranny of trends. Next, he grapples with the consequences of the Hype Machine for elections, businesses, dating, and health. Finally, he maps out strategies for navigating the Hype Machine, offering his singular guidance for managing social media to fulfill its promise going forward. Rarely has a book so directly wrestled with the secret forces that drive the news cycle every day"--
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Preface Pandemics, Promise, and Peril (p. ix)
- Chapter 1 The New Social Age (p. 3)
- Chapter 2 The End of Reality (p. 24)
- Chapter 3 The Hype Machine (p. 56)
- Chapter 4 Your Brain on Social Media (p. 94)
- Chapter 5 A Network's Gravity Is Proportional to Its Mass (p. 112)
- Chapter 6 Personalized Mass Persuasion (p. 131)
- Chapter 7 Hypersocialization (p. 156)
- Chapter 8 Strategies for a Hypersocialized World (p. 169)
- Chapter 9 The Attention Economy and the Tyranny of Trends (p. 200)
- Chapter 10 The Wisdom and Madness of Crowds (p. 225)
- Chapter 11 Social Media's Promise is also its Peril (p. 259)
- Chapter 12 Building a Better Hype Machine (p. 287)
- Acknowledgments (p. 323)
- Notes (p. 327)
- Illustration Sources (p. 367)
- Index (p. 369)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Aral (director, Initiative on Digital Economy, MIT) takes readers on a wild journey to explore the role of social media in our lives. The hype machine is "real time communications ecosystem created by social media," in which users join and engage with one another on such platforms. Drawing on decades of research and personal experiences, Aral ambitiously shows the promises and perils of social media networks, and its enduring costs such as privacy and access. These networks offer new economic opportunities and social mobility benefits for users through the hype machine, but there are still major disparities in access to be addressed. For example, Aral argues that the hype machine's algorithmic patterns can enhance opportunities for users who have a high socioeconomic standing to expand their networks. Aral advocates for a "healthier social ecosystem" and designing a system that follows norms and strives for collaborations and diverse perspectives. VERDICT Timely for readers interested in important issues, such as data ethics, privacy, platform policies and regulations, the role of social media tech giants in our lives, and how these tools impact consumers' behaviors.--Raymond Pun, Alder Graduate Sch. of Education, CAKirkus Book Review
The head of MIT's Social Analytics lab warns that Facebook and other social media titans are controlling our behavior--and that breaking up the behemoths won't solve the problem. In 2018, Aral and two colleagues made headlines when they published a study that found that lies travel faster than truth online. Such attention-grabbing facts abound in this survey of what the author calls "the Hype Machine," or "the real-time communications ecosystem created by social media," and how it is changing behavior. As the author shows how social networks use "psychological, economic, and technical hooks" to lock in and manipulate people, he makes some points covered in books such as Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. Aral also includes a fair amount of material that will hold interest mainly for marketers or other professional persuaders--e.g., "Digital ads don't work nearly as well as they're advertised." The author shines, however, when he validates or challenges many popular beliefs about social media. Anyone who fears that Russia might use Facebook to disrupt the 2020 presidential election, he suggests, is right to do so--but they should also worry about China and Iran. Anyone who cheered Twitter's decision to label fake-news tweets should consider two facts: Such labels can also cause readers to distrust true news and create an "implied truth effect" that leads readers to believe that anything not labeled false is true. For all this, Aral argues that leviathans like Facebook don't need to be broken up but could be reined in by laws that, for example, would increase data portability and allow people to take data shared online to other networks just as they can take their phone numbers to new carriers. Ardent trust-busters may disagree, but Aral's arguments are clear and stimulating, and as the presidential election nears, the book could hardly be timelier. A useful, data-rich analysis of how we use social media--and how it uses us. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Sinan Aral is the David Austin Professor of Management, Marketing, IT, and Data Science at MIT; director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy; and head of MIT's Social Analytics Lab. He is an active entrepreneur and venture capitalist who served as chief scientist at several startups; co-founded Manifest Capital, a VC fund that grows startups into the Hype Machine; and worked closely with Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, WeChat, and The New York Times , among other companies. He currently serves on the advisory boards of the Alan Turing Institute, the British National Institute for Data Science in London, the Centre for Responsible Media Technology and Innovation in Norway, and C6 Bank, Brazil's first all-digital bank.There are no comments on this title.