THE CHAOS MACHINE The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

A NEW YORK TIMES journalist exposes the algorithms and incentives used by social media to promote hyper-partisanship for the purpose of driving revenue. Narrator Peter Ganim presents the author's arguments and eye-opening anecdotes in an evenhanded but compelling voice. The audiobook presents a history of how social media arrived at the point where, by feeding the participant a steady diet of clickbait on FaceBook, YouTube or Twitter, the average apolitical person can be manipulated into extreme positions, whether in Myanmar or Washington, DC. Though many examples will be familiar, their implications will startle. The audiobook ends with the Capitol Insurrection of 2021, but the algorithms go on. A riveting, chilling listen. L.W.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2022]