Digital madness How social media is driving our mental health crisis-and how to restore our sanity

Psychologist Kardaras (Glow Kids) delivers a sobering account of how social media damages mental health. Because humans evolved for face-to-face communication and physical activity, he explains, "our tech has outpaced our biology" by fostering a sedentary and fragmented lifestyle that leads people to feel overworked, exhausted, and depressed. Comparing social media companies to Big Pharma, Kardaras excoriates such platforms as Facebook and Twitter for creating interfaces that are addictive by design, noting that users need an ever-increasing level of stimulation to achieve the same dopamine rush in a process that renders offline activities unbearably dull by comparison. The consequences, he suggests, are rising incidences of personality disorders, depression, and obesity, as well as such sociogenic conditions as TikTok Tourette's, in which TikTok users who follow influencers with Tourette's syndrome sometimes start manifesting tics of their own. Kardaras uses easy to understand language to provide a bracing look at the toxic psychological effects of too much tech, though some of his pronouncements come across as over the top: "immortality-seeking megalomaniac tech oligarchs... want nothing more than to addict us, harvest our 'digital exhaust,' and put us in an alternate and illusory reality." Readers will be unnerved. (Sept.)

Something has gone seriously wrong with American society, and the root cause is digital technology. As the director of a mental health clinic and a one-time heroin addict, Kardaras understands the nature of addiction. As he shows, social media and computer games can be as addictive and toxic as any chemical, leading to anxiety, depression, and despair. In his 2016 book, Glow Kids, the author examined the impact of the internet on children. Here, he takes a broader view, looking not just at teenagers and adults, but at society as a whole. Though he has seen many patients with borderline personality disorder, he believes that it is dramatically underreported. Many intense users of technology have fallen into a pattern of binary thinking, able to see only extremes and suffering from a lack of empathy. They are perpetually angry, fearful, and impulsive--all signs of BPD. Others have a deep sense of self-loathing and frustration, terrified that they will never meet the standards of the media influencers they follow. This has also led to political polarization, isolation, and a breakdown of long-standing social contracts. Added to the mental troubles are the physical effects of spending so much time glued to screens, particularly obesity and diabetes. Kardaras emphasizes that the effects of addiction are known by the tech companies, but they choose to do nothing because their profits are based on it. "I freely concede that we have achieved wondrous advancements in our technological abilities," he writes. "But our species is deteriorating; we're getting weaker, both physically and mentally." As a therapist, he offers a plan for breaking the cycle of addiction, focused on finding a meaningful purpose and building real-life social connections. The difficulty with this is that it only works for those who want to recover, and the reality is that most tech addicts--like any other category of addict--won't admit the problem. A frightening diagnosis of a corrosive plague by an articulate expert in the field. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.