4 out of 5 stars
On Amazon
On Goodreads
How I discovered this book: It was offered for review by book blogger and blog tour operator @shanannigans / RR Book Tours
In a Nutshell: Exploration of social media, mostly TikTok, and how its obsessive use affects young people.
This book was not quite as I expected from that dramatic title, and I soon discovered that I am definitely not within the target demographic. It's an exploration of the culture surrounding the TikTok app; other sites are briefly touched upon, namely Facebook, Twitch and Instagram, but mostly as a comparison, examining only one or two areas of the sites. Having said this, I now know a great deal about TikTok, all of which was most interesting; many members of its royalty are named, and I found myself wondering who Charli D'Amelio was. I looked her up on Youtube and ended up spending half an hour watching her dance videos - I can see why she's so popular.
Ms Ma has concentrated her study around those who use the platform to gain fame and fortune, and writes extensively on how damaging this can be, and the lengths to which users will go to achieve their goals, from the silly and fun to the darker than dark. I did find this all quite fascinating, as well as her in depth look at how the site works; its algorithms, and so on.
Where the book falls down is in its limited outlook. It assumes everyone uses social media in the same way, addicted to the 'likes', constantly checking for evidence of popularity, sharing all manner of personal content with no thought for privacy. Ms Ma makes constant generalisations:
'Most of us live mundane lives that leave us unmotivated, work 9 to 5 jobs and come home to alcohol and television.' Um, no, we don't, but this is, apparently, why 'we' are all so addicted to social media.
'Why are we so desperate for internet and TikTok fame? Why do we see losing followers and fame as the end of the world?' (Answer: millions, of us aren't, and don't).
'We constantly feel the need to check up on our own profiles or feeds to see if people like our material or not'. Every day I see many young users of Twitter who use social media for reasons other than posting selfies and videos of themselves to get attention. I have a bright, attractive, outgoing niece of 20 years old, who doesn't use any of the sites much at all. My nieces-in-law are of a similar age and have 'lives', not just phone screens.
Ms Ma writes well and this is a basically a good book; if it wasn't, I wouldn't have read it all. However, I think it needs more thinking through, and most definitely a different title. She does not have enough material to cover the present one; Twitter, for instance, is scarcely mentioned.
To write a proper study of this massive and complex subject, Ms Ma would need to look at the beginning of social media and how it evolved - MySpace, the original, is not mentioned at all. Her ideas are good, and have weight, but I think that she needs to use Facebook and Twitter more to actually understand how they work, and research how people other than her contemporaries use them. Alternatively, give the book a different title that indicates what it actually is: an exposé of all that is wrong and dangerous about TikTok. As such, it is extremely good, and I can imagine many disillusioned users of the site lapping up every word - and telling their friends about it. Of course, the place to promote it would be TikTok itself; I hope she realises this!
This is the best line in the whole book, and one to bear in mind, for many reasons:
No social media site has ever been created or optimised for the sake of its users.
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