AMONG the paradoxes of our era is that globalisation has been connecting the world and also fragmenting it. The world is more interconnected than ever before but also atomised. This has been accentuated by the ever-growing but complex and crowded media landscape. In the information age, trivia and falsehood compete with information to engage our attention, challenging us to separate the two and focus on what is factual and really important. Moreover, profusion of information does not necessarily mean an accretion in knowledge.

There is now a growing body of literature that deals with information and communication technology. Some books extol its benefits and virtues while others express scepticism and point to its dangers and detrimental consequences. A compelling new publication, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholas Carr, belongs firmly to the latter category. Carr has written several books on the impact of technology on people`s lives and thinking. His previous work, The Shallows,analysed what the internet was doing to our brains, in which he argued it was seriously affecting our ability to think deeply even as it was opening new vistas for us. His new book takes that conversation forward and expands on it by examining how digital communication technology information systems, online platforms and tools that include smartphones, the internet, computers, social media and artificial intelligence are influencing and changing the lives of people and societies.

All these connections that enable people to receive so much information and messages at unprecedented speed and scope should broaden minds, enlarge empathy and create more understanding and harmony. It is often assumed that by making communication more efficient and accessible a lot of problems can be fixed. But, Carr argues, it hasn`t turned out this way. In fact, it has unleashed unforeseen and unintended consequences, which have had a contrary effect, undermining understanding and trust and contributing to strife and social disharmony. Speed and intensity in the flow of information and stimuli force people to rely on intuitive thinking based on biases. It robs them of the ability to tap into deeper analysis. It has undermined carefulreading, reasoned analysis, methodical evaluation and contemplative inquiry. `Attention splinters, understanding grows thin,` he posits, adding `rather than levelling barriers to knowledge, it becomes a barrier itself`. This results in mental shortcuts and shallow thinking.

Carr takes readers on a fascinating journey through the history of technological advancement, starting with the invention of the telegraph to present-day large-scale communication networks along with the profits made by giant, unaccountable tech companies. He draws on psychology and sociology to buttress many of his observations. Every advance in media, he writes, was accompanied by `millenarian rhetoric`. Each time, claims were made about how the world would become a better, friendlier place with people joined in happy brotherhood. Personal diplomacy would be rendered obsolete, crises averted and wars prevented. None of this, of course, happened. Therefore, Carr asserts, `we had been telling ourselves lies about communication and about ourselves`.

He reserves his most scathing critique for social media and the tech companies that run them. The consequences of this have yet to be fully fathomed. More than promoting facts and truth, social media amplifies falsehoods and hostility. Shorn of communication barriers, it brings people`s worst instincts into play. The `ugly content that pervades the social media` he also attributes to tech companies and the role played by algorithms. They choose content to stir strong emotions that create a slippery slope compelling people to be drawn even more into the `feed`.

`Social media churns out information that`s been highly processed to stimulate not just engagement but also dependency.` Moreover, in encouraging excessive and unchecked self-exposure before a mass-media-sized audience, it tears down all boundaries. This leads to discord, not harmony.

Yes, he says, close bonds can be formed online, but that and other benefits don`t outweigh the drawbacks, including psychological harm. Carr questions the narrative that digital media is a democratising vehicle, which to him overlooks how it breeds extreme views, polarisation and fanaticism. He argues it is more conducive to authoritarian movements and cults of personal-ity. Communication media, he claims, is anything but politically neutral. It spawns asymmetries of power as it determines what we know and therefore shapes our thinking in the process.

Some of Carr`s assessments about digital technology bring to mind a very readable and insightful book published much earlier. This saw it producing another kind of outcome loneliness, both personal and political. The Lonely Planet, by British economist Noreena Hertz, had a different focus, as the title of her book indicates, but it also considered the damaging effects of communication technology and social media. Of course, what she described as a global pandemic of loneliness defined as a feeling of being unsupported in a social and familial context and also by fellow citizens, governments and the state was ascribed to a conflation of diverse factors and events. They included `structural and institutional discrimination`, an urbanisation wave, rise of neoliberalism and fundamental changes to how we live.

But Hertz also assigned an `integral role` to social media and smartphones in making people `more angry and tribal`. In analysing `digital distraction`, she used research findings to press the case that technology and social media are also contributing to the loneliness crisis. Smartphones `fragment our attention`, estrange us from people and `create a splintered self` among other damaging effects she mentions. Apart from pushing people into isolated digital bubbles, social media is creating a meaner, more aggressive world. This is more than apparent from trolling and offensive online behaviour. Therefore, Hertz urges the need to hold social media to account and acknowledge the dangers of `tech addiction`.

None of this, however, means that the enormous opportunities communication and digital technology offer and their untold benefits should be discounted. They are wide-ranging and have powered many promising developments and helped to fuel unprecedented social and economic progress. But these books offer instructive insights into the vulnerabilities and harmful repercussions they create which have yet to be mitigated or effectively managed. • The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.