Disconnect

A necessary reset of a book … Given how many of us are losing loved ones to conspiracy rabbit holes and brain-shaping tech, this humane, insightful and – yes – practical book couldn’t be more timely.

As our lives move online, we’re all carried along by a vast ocean of data … Well informed, well researched and very readable, Disconnect by Jordan Guiao helps us navigate the great data ocean. It helps us identify these big phenomena and how they affect us as individuals. Armed with that understanding, we’re better equipped to survive the data ocean’s most terrifying tempests.

Jordan Guiao is a digital native who brings our disordered online world into focus through the characters in a terrifying new story – many of whom we will have already met in our own social media feed. Guiao fuses personal stories with professional insight, and the result is refreshingly empathetic and practical. Disconnect is both a cautionary tale and a sorely needed rallying call to reclaim a healthy internet.

What do we do when our friends fall prey to conspiracy theories, dating scams or online abuse? When our children become depressed because they can’t live up to a social media ideal? Jordan Guiao’s Disconnect dissects how social media platforms have been used to exploit our vulnerabilities and what happens to the people who are targeted online. Thankfully, this timely book doesn’t reduce such problems to moral panics. Instead, Guiao builds complex case studies of freedom fighters and anti-vaxxers, screen addicts, abusers and victims, offering useful insights into the power of social media to alter our worldviews and polarise societies. Guiao’s case that it’s time to act to rein in this power gives practical suggestions about how to change our relationships with technology.

Jordan Guiao is a research fellow at The Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology. A former digital strategist at the ABC and head of social media at SBS, he is the co-editor (with Peter Lewis) of The Public Square Project.