Review by Choice Review
Chayka, a writer for The New Yorker, pursues the idea that algorithms flatten culture by driving producers to mimic only the styles that get the most "likes." Exploring the effect of algorithms beyond the familiar critique of social media, he argues that Airbnb is driven by the same flattening forces. Hosts remake their rental spaces to match the most expected kind of space for the fantasy of being a local, not a tourist. The author explores a similar theme in his well-known essay for the Guardian, "The Tyranny of the Algorithm," in which he notes that coffeehouses all over the world gradually adopted a "Brooklyn" aesthetic through the 2010s. Chayka is not primarily concerned with the polarizing effects of algorithms leading consumers into different, opposing silos. His concern is with how the "Instagrammability" of the experience matters more than the experience itself. He cites much evidence from the social sciences, but readers from those disciplines may find his framing of each issue with stories of his personal experience distracting. Chayka considers proposed ways of regulating recommendation filters to fight cultural homogenization. He holds the most hope, though, for consumers relying more on curation by quirky human connoisseurs. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and undergraduates. --Beau Weston, Centre College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Filterworld, as charted by New Yorker writer Chayka, is, simply, our everyday world. From the songs Spotify autoplays to the items Amazon encourages a shopper to add to their cart, the evolution of algorithms has completely changed how users interact with online platforms. As Chayka shows, these endorsements are based not around creating a better user experience but on producing advertising clicks and longer session times, all leading to bigger revenues and market shares. Chayka delineates how our most used social feeds have abandoned chronological browsing in favor of showing just what the algorithm has chosen. While Filterworld is not written as a self-help program, Chayka's frank discussion of his own digital detox, full of anxiety before arriving at an algorithmic homeostasis, will inspire readers to believe there is a way out, returning to human tastemakers. He makes it clear that this is increasingly a decision which bumps directly against how our digitally reliant lives are set up. Fans of the burgeoning genre of Big Tech ethnography will appreciate Chayka's astute historical analysis and philosophical rumination on the subject, all "filtered" expertly with his own biography as a millennial who grew up amid the explosion of the socially fixated web.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An important book about how to get out of the algorithmic box and make your own decisions. Algorithms have become the secret drivers of Google, Instagram, TikTok, and all the other digital platforms, and they are having an insidious impact on how we think, consume, and produce, writes New Yorker staff writer Chayka, author of The Longing for Less. They continually collect data, feeding our past choices--and the preferences of other people--back to us. This process makes endless browsing easy, but it locks us in an echo chamber, slowly degrading our capacity for original thinking. It also affects the physical world, and Chayka offers an intriguing--and distressing--explanation of how all the coffee shops in the world came to look the same, thanks to Instagram and Snapchat. Our world has become filtered and machine-managed, with success measured in engagement metrics. As a remedy, the author offers interesting ideas for regulation, mostly focused on greater transparency. He admits that this would be hard to do, so he offers a more personal path. Undertaking an "algorithmic cleanse," Chayka jumped off the social media sites that had taken over his life. For a while, he suffered from "fear of missing out," but eventually, he felt his creativity returning. When he rejoined the online world, he ignored the constant flow of recommendations and looked only for the niches that interested him. During this time, the author discovered that guidance from algorithms is completely unnecessary. "Regaining control isn't so hard," writes the author. "You make a personal choice and begin to intentionally seek out your own cultural rabbit hole, which leads you in new directions, to yet more independent decisions…and, ultimately, a sense of self." Chayka's timely investigation shows how we can reject the algorithms of the digital era and reclaim our humanity. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
