The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health--And How We Must Adapt

This book is a wonderful read which makes you realise the major impact social media plays in our day to day life.

There are tons of books on social media and this is the best I’ve read so far. MIT Professor Sinan Aral is a leading expert on the topic and the book is full of insights and eye-opening facts, all backed by academic research. I was not expecting to finish this rigorous book within a week. But I kept reading and couldn’t put it away.

Sinan Aral brings his wide and deep knowledge about how social media works and how it works on us. His engaging writing style helps you quickly understand the topic. He doesn't soft pedal the seriousness of what social media is doing to us world-wide, but he also clear guidance on how to manage it so that its benefits outweigh cost.

Es un libro que debe ser leído. Te explica como las redes sociales pueden influir en tu vida diaria, como las fake news pueden llegar a perjudicar socialmente a un grupo de minorías.

I highly recommend this book. Through storytelling supported by data, Sinan Aral describes and quantifies social media's impact on society - from relationships, charitable giving, elections, and the economy. He analyzes the different ways social media has been manipulated to serve specific agendas and then investigates the resulting impact on society. Much of it is alarming and everyone should be aware of how it works to be more conscientious about their own interactions online. This book is very timely - Aral predicted the political strife that has recently played out in the US. There is a lot of noise about social media right now - much of it opinion rooted in emotion. What I like about The Hype Machine is that 1) it quantifies impact and tries to understand causation 2) it focuses on the positive impact as well as the negative 3) it offers ideas for potential solutions to improve our current plight. At a minimum this book will help you think through all the actions you take online which is really important right now...and at most it will inspire some ideas about how to fix the problems. These are complex issues and in order to find solutions, we need to observe, measure and identify the root cause and effect. This is what Sinan Aral is doing - along with his colleagues - and I hope to see more from him in the future.