The Internet is Made of Demons

Justin E.H. Smith's book The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is (2022) argues that the internet works like a possessing demon: it does not connect people so much as speak through them. He points to online incentive systems that reward posts by likes, shares and retweets, which he says channel users' speech and can lead to cruelty, such as the 2019 pile-on against a college student by bestselling authors. He also cites a 2011 meta-analysis linking declining youth empathy to social media and notes that 22% of millennials say they have no friends. Smith draws a parallel to Johannes Trithemius's Steganographia, c. 1499, whose spirits deliver messages that simulate thought.