by Larry Pepe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11, 2022
A thorough, well-researched account of a pressing contemporary problem.
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A wide-ranging work makes the case that social media are both dangerous and addictive and presents strategies for users and parents to navigate their pitfalls.
Pepe begins with a claim now familiar in public discourse—social media are not only perniciously addictive, but also potentially harmful to their users in sundry ways. But he significantly amplifies this contention—he asserts that social media can produce an intense addictive attachment that rivals the power of cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling. In addition, social media can either produce or deeply exacerbate a bevy of serious mental health afflictions, including loneliness and depression, and can function as a gateway to suicide. The author argues that social media’s potential for mass harm is unprecedented since “there has never been any technology, means of social interaction or advertising medium with the potential to create and exacerbate more psychological damage than social media platforms. The once-in-a-lifetime combination of programming, structures, dopamine infusers, artificial intelligence and psychological manipulation techniques puts mental health risks at every user’s fingertips every time they use” these sites. Drawing on an impressive storehouse of scientific studies, Pepe explores the dark underworld of social media with an emphasis on the impact the platforms have on their most ardent and vulnerable devotees: adolescents. With accessible clarity, he covers a broad spectrum of issues, including the cognitive impairments social media can induce, the rise of cancel culture, and the growing problem of censorship and its consequences for public discourse. The tone of the author’s diligent analysis can flirt with crossing a line from urgent to hyperventilated, but he consistently furnishes empirical evidence to substantiate his claims. In addition, this book is more than the sounding of an alarm; Pepe provides a discussion of the ways in which social media users—and their parents—can sanely arm themselves against the dangers. His counsel is less than groundbreaking—his principal advice to parents is to severely limit their kids’ use of social media. Still, this is an always reasonable and sometimes eye-opening treatment of an important but not always fully understood issue.
A thorough, well-researched account of a pressing contemporary problem.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-9854215-1-4
Page Count: 318
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Alok Vaid-Menon ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2020
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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by Judith Butler ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2024
A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes.
A deeply informed critique of the malicious initiatives currently using gender as a political tool to arouse fear and strengthen political and religious institutions.
In their latest book, following The Force of Nonviolence, Butler, the noted philosopher and gender studies scholar, documents and debunks the anti-gender ideology of the right, the core principle of which is that male and female are natural categories whose recognition is essential for the survival of the family, nations, and patriarchal order. Its proponents reject “sex” as a malleable category infused with prior political and cultural understandings. By turning gender into a “phantasmatic scene,” they enable those in positions of authority to deflect attention from such world-destroying forces as war, predatory capitalism, and climate change. Butler explores the ideology’s presence in the U.S., the U.K., Uganda, and Hungary, countries where legislation has limited the rights of trans and homosexual people and denied them their sexual identity. The author also delves into the ideology’s roots among Evangelicals and the Catholic Church and such political leaders as Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán. Butler is particularly bothered by trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who treat trans women as “male predators in disguise.” For the author, “the gap between the perceived or lived body and prevailing social norms can never be fully closed.” They imagine “a world where the many relations to being socially embodied that exist become more livable” and calls for alliances across differences and “a radical democracy informed by socialist values.” Butler compensates for the thinness of some of their recommendations with an astute dissection of the ideology’s core ideas and impressive grasp of its intellectual pretensions. This is a wonderfully thoughtful and impassioned book on a critically important centerpiece of contemporary authoritarianism and patriarchy.
A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780374608224
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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