Sadness is now a
design problem. The highs and lows of melancholy are coded into
social media platforms. After all the clicking, browsing, swiping and
liking, all we are left with is the flat and empty aftermath of time
lost to the app.
Sad by Design offers
a critical analysis of the growing social media controversies such as
fake news, toxic viral memes and online addiction. The failed search
for a grand design has resulted in depoliticised internet studies
unable to generate either radical critique or a search for
alternatives.
Geert Lovink calls
for us to embrace the engineered intimacy of social media, messenger
apps and selfies, because boredom is the first stage of overcoming
'platform nihilism'. Then, after the haze, we can organise to disrupt
the data extraction industries at their core.
