Review by Choice Review
This volume is part of a renewed critical analysis of social media in modern lives. Now that social media such as Facebook have been successfully integrated into everyday life, the author, who is a communications professor at the University of Toronto, raises the question of how major corporations managing these platforms deal with the problem of keeping users engaged--or in other words, connected. Familiar is the argument that corporations treat users as data, but less familiar is the possibility raised by the author of disconnection, and the possible cultural implications when people take control of their own communication rather than be controlled by media. Reading failures of movements such as Quit Facebook Day, he interprets the cultural tropes that result from them that have had a lasting impact. This provocative, lively book is significant for challenging users to think critically about these tropes in the digital age. A welcome addition to collections on technology, media, and society. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduates through faculty. --Simon J. Bronner, emeritus, Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg Campus
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
