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The discomfort of breathing

Book review written by geert@nytid.com
Our disappointment on social media only stimulates the pursuit of ever more refined manipulation techniques. Detoxification is not the answer, writes Geert Lovink.

(THIS ARTICLE IS ONLY MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

Welcome to the new normal. Social media is reforming our inner lives. As platform and individual become inseparable, social networking becomes identical to "the social" as such. We are no longer curious about what "the next web" will bring – instead we talk about what kind of information we can graze on in barren periods. The previous belief in the transient nature of hype has been shattered, and a new realism reigns in its place. As Evgeny Morozov put it in a tweet: “1990s tech utopianism claimed that networks weaken or replace. . .

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Full 100-page MODERN TIMES including the appendix Orientering and Modern Times Review comes out quarterly (March 1, June 1, September 1 and December 1) with international book reviews, essays and comments – in addition to the physical newspaper and PDF, the articles are eventually published online here (see also the newsletter).

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