The review says Garber opens with the 2015 online row over “the dress” and an Arizona llama chase to frame a fractured internet era.
It describes the book as a thorough but sometimes meandering introduction to how digital intermediaries reshape private life, public behavior and even presidential elections.
Garber argues entertainment culture, amplified by smartphones, now permeates daily experience so that actions are constantly perceived and often broadcast to the world.
As AI curates our digital worlds, are we trading genuine community for perfectly tailored, but isolating, entertainment?
With platforms engineered for addiction, can 'digital hygiene' work or must we redesign our online public squares?
Our digital lives are built on data centers harming the planet. How do we reconcile online habits with their real-world environmental cost?