The acclaimed new book from the author of The Shallows, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart is a searching, searing exploration of the way social media has warped our sense of self and society.

“Fascinating.” –The Economist
“Bracing.” –The Wall Street Journal
“Eye-opening.” –The American Scholar
“Inspiring.” –Los Angeles Review of Books
“Urgent.” –Booklist
“Lucid.” –The Hedgehog Review
“Vivid.” –Undark
“Perceptive.” –National Review
“Profound.” –The Gospel Coalition

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Read a Preview: “From Anxiety to Animosity”

From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Superbloom tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.

A celebrated writer on the human consequences of technology, Nicholas Carr reorients the conversation around modern communication, challenging some of our most cherished beliefs about self-expression, free speech, and media democratization. He reveals how messaging apps strip nuance from conversation, how “digital crowding” erodes empathy and triggers aggression, how online political debates narrow our minds and distort our perceptions, and how advances in AI are further blurring the already hazy line between fantasy and reality.

Even as Carr shows how tech companies and their tools of connection have failed us, he forces us to confront inconvenient truths about our own nature. The human psyche, it turns out, is profoundly ill-suited to the “superbloom” of information that technology has unleashed.

With rich psychological insights and vivid examples drawn from history and science, Superbloom provides both a panoramic view of how media shapes society and an intimate examination of the fate of the self in a time of radical dislocation. It may be too late to change the system, Carr counsels, but it’s not too late to change ourselves.

Praise for Superbloom:

“[A] great new book. . . . Carr is superb as a writer who retains a strong sense of humanity and who can write about the gradual loss of that humanity as technology makes life faster, more convenient, and less fulfilling.” —Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation

“As digital technologies extend ever deeper into our lives, it’s more critical than ever for us all to understand how online exchanges foment social breakdown — and Superbloom stands out for its appeal to a broad swath of readers. Where so many technology books seem like sealed capsules, accessible only to those who know the lingo, Carr’s vivid, jargon-free prose hits right in the solar plexus.” —Elizabeth Svoboda, Undark

“Carr does a deep dive into the history of social media and examines the damage it’s doing to modern society. . . . As always, Carr’s perspective is urgent and bracing, a necessary challenge to idealistic visions of a democratic internet.” —John Keogh, Booklist (starred review)

“Carr persuasively sounds the alarm about the destructive nature of social media and the corporations that control it . . . A call to change our relationship with communication technologies.” —Kirkus Reviews

“We can’t change or constrain the tech, says Carr, but we can change ourselves. We can choose to reject the hyperreal for the material. We can follow Samuel Johnson’s refutation of immaterialism by ‘kicking the stone,’ reminding ourselves of what is real. It is an inspiring rallying call, and Superbloom shows us what is at stake.” —Philip Ball, Los Angeles Review of Books

“[A] fascinating new book on the effects of the internet.” —James Bennet, The Economist

“Carr has been sounding the alarm over new information technology for years, most famously in The Shallows, in which he warned about what the internet was doing to our brains. Superbloom is an extension of his jeremiad into the social media era.” —Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

“[An] eye-opening new book . . . We have, Carr concludes, ‘been telling ourselves lies about communication—and about ourselves.’ It’s time we stop.” —Sam Kean, American Scholar

“This book might finally convince you to stay off social media — or at least get the apps off your phone.” —Brianne Kane, Scientific American

“Superbloom is . . . a perceptive commentary not merely on contemporary technology but on humans’ permanent foibles. . . . Carr’s advice calls to mind that of another horticulturally minded observer of our plight, Voltaire. The Frenchman’s famous injunction in Candide, that ‘we must cultivate our garden’ — less preening and more pruning, you might say — gains a new and timely resonance with Superbloom.” —Robert Bellafiore, National Review

“Mr. Carr is a thoughtful analyst . . . We think being ‘connected’ to one another will produce feelings of connection. Mr. Carr shows again and again that it just ain’t so.” —Megan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal

“Carr set off an avalanche [with The Shallows]. . . . [He] has a new book, Superbloom, about not only distraction but all the psychological harms of the Internet. We’ve suffered a ‘fragmentation of consciousness,’ Carr writes, our world having been ‘rendered incomprehensible by information.’” —Daniel Immerwahr, The New Yorker

“At times alarming, Superbloom is a profound reminder of what’s at stake if we consume only ultraprocessed communication at the expense of real, embodied community.” —Nicholas J. Weyrens, The Gospel Coalition

“Nicholas Carr is widely considered one of the most astute technology critics of our time. He consistently spots paradoxes in our relationship with tech. . . . More communication with more people was once thought to be the key to social progress — a way to gain a richer, more empathetic sense of others’ beliefs and circumstances. Unfortunately, Carr contends, communication at the scale and speed of social media has decreased goodwill and trust.” —Evan Selinger, Boston Globe

“This book is so timely. I say this as an extremely online person who has a deep love for the culture and history of the internet: maybe some of this was a bad idea.” —Oliver Scialdone, Lit Hub

“Read This!” —Saturday Evening Post

“Nicholas Carr asks: how much progress is too much progress? . . . The bestselling author explores the history of technological advances and questions where we need to draw the line between innovation and societal dislocation in Superbloom. Groundbreaking and thought-provoking.” —B&N Reads

Praise for Nicholas Carr: