Social media has done a lot of good. From showing us important newsworthy events we wouldn’t otherwise have seen, to bringing people and ideas together…
But it’s also a massive pain in the arse, from convincing your uncle the Illuminati knows the whereabouts of Shrimp Jesus, to everyone screaming blue murder at each other. These two things can both be true. It’s a blessing and a curse.
First, I’ll mention that if you actually want to log off (or at least reduce your time), then Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier (2018) will give you a quick motivator to touch grass. I won’t include that here, though, as it’s more a brief treatise. We actually want to get to the heart of this whole deal.
And there’s plenty out there offering just that, as we’re not including books that are simply straightforward A-to-B technical analyses of the platforms. The psychological/sociological impact is also (if not more) essential. Because honestly, if Silicon Valley won’t consider the damage, then who will?
So, here are five key texts that I feel provide a firm understanding of what social media is today.
Jon Ronson – So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (2015)
View on Amazon.com
Was going to save this till last, but let’s tackle the granddaddy of all good social-media analysis head-on. Written by British journalist Jon Ronson (who, if you like Louis Theroux then you’ll love his work), this book sets about following the history of internet ‘public shamings.’
It begins with Ronson seeing how people responded online to a callout he made following a case of his own stolen identity and public defaming, taking note of the sheer viciousness of the comments directed toward his perpetrators. Following this thread he then picks up on some famous cases that were subsequently (conveniently) forgotten about. One case being Justine Sacco who, following a controversial joke tweet that she intended her few followers to see, was picked up and broadcast worldwide. Subsequently her life was over, leaving her afraid to leave the house. And it’s cases like these Ronson puts into context from both a psychological and historical perspective.
What it doesn’t do is get into the rights and wrongs of ‘cancel culture’ (you can find more than enough culture war arguments wafting around the internet). But what it does do is give you a history of the online mob mentality as the seeds began to form. How you respond to that is up to you.
View on Amazon.com
To be honest, I’m also kind of giving Taylor Lorenz a shout-out here due to her other extensive online reporting and podcasts. This book, while informative for any newcomers, really offers more of a broad-sweep history of the rise of social media. It’s good, but if you know, you know.
Starting with its maybe-not-so-humble-beginnings, Lorenz moves from the early days of Facebook and blogging identity brands, charting how our online social spaces morphed into the time vacuums we now know them as today. There’s also some interesting insight into the shift toward more video-based platforms, with Vine (remember that?) being the precursor to TikTok. It’s all there, documented and accounted for.
And that’s pretty much it!
So, ideal for your nan when she asks, ‘What’s all this TwitterTok about then?’ A solid, informative history lesson on the birth of social-media that’s accessible for anyone and everyone.
Cory Doctorow – Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (2025)
View on Amazon.com
It’s that term again! If you’ve heard it before, then you’ve heard it a million times by now. But for those that don’t know, ‘enshittification,’ or ‘crapifcation’ if you’re so inclined, is the gradual decline in quality over time of any given digital online product. Another more literal term is ‘platform decay,’ which pretty much says it all. Basically companies make their cool product, people love it, then they get greedy and complacent.
It’s here that Cory Doctorow, who popularized the term back in 2022 (so much so it went in the dictionary), lays it all out fully in this book. Not only that, but he also looks to the future, seeing what can be done.
So why am I applying this to social media, I hear you ask? The thing is, this business breakdown rings true for any and all online services, especially social media. Everyone remembers when Facebook was a fun less contentious site for needlessly poking your friends, while accidentally telling everyone what you were listening to at 2 in the morning (‘U ok hun?’ underneath ‘Sam listened to Radiohead’). And also how your TikTok feed is flattening out, making way for more ad-friendly content. That’s all platform decay.
And that’s something we could all have less of.
Naomi Klein – Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (2023)
View on Amazon.com
Some might argue I’m going on a bit of a tangent here, but I honestly feel Klein provides powerful insight into what social media/the internet has done to our brains (particularly during the pandemic). And besides, it’s such a great read I couldn’t not include it.
In it, Naomi Klein finds herself constantly confused with the writer Naomi Wolf. The thing is, Wolf’s perspective couldn’t be further from her own. Originally a left-leaning feminist author back in the day, Wolf moved over to the right, essentially becoming a ‘mirror-image’ of Naomi Klein’s own media brand. And it’s from here that Klein begins her journey into our current state of political polarization, how we got here, and what we can do moving forward.
Looking into the state of the internet and the impact it’s had upon the world, Klein sheds light on modern politics and where it’s taking us. From conspiracy theories to AI misinformation, we’ve all found ourselves under threat of getting ‘lost in the sauce.’ Regardless of your personal stance on Klein’s politics wherever you lie on the political spectrum, this is a topic that affects us all. And it’s essential to address.
Sarah Frier – No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram (2020)
View on Amazon.com
For our final title we’ll go behind the scenes of one of the largest social-media platforms to date: Instagram. But we don’t just want to provide charts and graphs; we also want to take a look at the impact it’s had on society and culture, which is precisely what Frier’s account does.
Everyone’s got some idea at this point of the ‘Instagram effect,’ creating its own unreality, and it’s here that we get to really understand how this came about. From Zuckerberg to the Kardashians, everyone who’s had a hand in filtering that picture-perfect image of a life the rest of us are supposedly missing out on gets a look in. Seeing how it’s transformed our day-to-day, it’s not an aggressive takedown (which it could easily fall into) nor a hagiography, but more a balanced look at what the company’s actually about.
They’ve had an impact on how we view the world, and it’s a useful point of focus for the true power of social media.
Do you think we’ve let any titles slip through the filter here? Let us know below.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A lifelong lover of quality storytelling, Sam grew up in rural England with little else but reading (okay, and some gaming). Starting with Charlotte's Web, he developed a passion for ghost stories and comedy. With his background in narrative and scriptwriting, he writes for Book Notification, providing recommendations both good and not so terrible.