From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Superbloom tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanised and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.

A celebrated commentator on the human consequences of technology, Nicholas Carr reorients the conversation around modern communication, challenging some of our most cherished beliefs about self-expression, free speech and media democratisation.

He reveals how messaging apps strip nuance from conversation, how "digital crowding" erodes empathy and triggers aggression, how online political debates narrow our minds and distort our perceptions and how advances in AI are further blurring the already hazy line between fantasy and reality.