Outrage Machine: How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy―And What We Can Do About It

An invaluable guide to understanding how the internet has broken our brains—and what we can do to fix it.
 
 The original internet was not designed to make us upset, distracted,  confused, and outraged. But something unexpected happened at the turn of  the last decade, when a handful of small features were quietly launched  at social media companies with little fanfare. Together, they triggered  a cascading set of dramatic changes to how media, politics, and society  itself operate—inadvertently creating an Outrage Machine we cannot ignore.

 Author, designer, and media researcher Tobias Rose-Stockwell shares the  defining shifts caused by these technologies, and how they have ignited  a society-wide crisis of trust. Drawing from cutting-edge research and  vivid personal anecdotes, Rose-Stockwell illustrates how social media  has bound us to an unprecedented system of public performance, training  us to react rather than reflect, and attack rather than debate.

Outrage Machine reveals the triggers and tactics used to exploit our anger, unpacking  how these tools hack our deep tribal instincts and psychological  vulnerabilities, and how they have become opportunistic platforms for  authoritarians and a threat to democratic norms everywhere.

But  this book is not just about the problem. In a story spanning continents  and generations, Rose-Stockwell explores how every new media technology  disrupts our ability to make sense of the world, from the printing press  to the telegraph, from radio to television. Outrage Machine situates social media within a historical cycle of confusion, violence,  and emerging tolerance. Using clear language and powerful  illustrations, this book reveals the magnitude of the challenges we  face, while offering realistic solutions and a promising pathway out.