Social Capital: Life online in the shadow of Ireland’s tech boom by Aoife Barry. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links were used. Read my full disclosure policy here.
I read Social Capital in two sittings, stopping only to eat dinner; that’s how compelling it is. Blending her personal experiences online with reportage and cultural criticism, journalist Aoife Barry questions whether any of us, including social media companies, knew what we were in for when we logged onto the internet for the first time.
Like most people, I have a complicated relationship with social media. Some days I long to delete everything and live in an app-free world. I know this isn’t a realistic prospect. Although I deleted my Twitter account a few years ago, which was the best decision, even though it is where I met my husband, P. I’ll always have a soft spot for the Irish Twitter of the 2010s, but that is not today's Twitter. But Social Capital isn’t a call for everyone to delete social media.
Instead, Barry provides a nuanced look at social media's role in our lives and explores what it means for Ireland that many tech companies have their European headquarters in Dublin. We know social media needs improving, but how do we ensure tech companies do it? And where should legislation come into play, or should it? These are big questions with no easy answers, but Barry’s considered approach reminds us that social media is a lifeline for so many people, so it is not as simple as telling everyone to log the fuck off.
This nuance is especially relevant when discussing anonymity online. Some people hide behind their anonymity to say and do horrific things, but there are also people —particularly people from marginalised groups — for whom anonymity online is vital. We see this in Barry’s interview with Aoife Martin. I also appreciated Aoife, Kate McEvoy, and Sarah Maria Griffin sharing their experiences of being harassed online by a man who targeted several Irish women. He was convicted in 2019.
So much of the talk around social media is filtered through an American or British lens, so it is great to see life online examined from an Irish perspective. Aoife’s walk through the Silicon Docks in the final chapter is so vividly depicted that I felt like I had taken the walk myself.
Social Capital: Life online in the shadow of Ireland’s tech boom by Aoife Barry is published by HarperCollins Ireland, an imprint of HarperCollins. Social Capital is available in trade paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.
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