Jaron Lanier’s book could be viewed as the eccentric musings of a technophobe, but that would be a significant misread. Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now is no Luddite screed.

Lanier offers a wise and balanced book on the various dangers of social media. As Lanier makes clear, he is not advocating a total move from the Internet, but rather a temporary time out to assess what the social media side of things may be doing to us.

Throughout Ten Arguments we learn (or perhaps we already knew it) disturbing aspects that come with social media like the constant manipulation by companies for financial gain. When Facebook executives are limiting their own children’s use of the Internet, we know there is both a problem and profound hypocrisy about the problem.

One of the more disturbing things that Lanier makes clear is that all this social media makes one know themselves less as people who we will never see get to know us better!

I don’t use Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I am glad I steered clear, but I will keep posting reviews and interviews about good books like this one!