Sins of the Internet

What the Platforms Did to Us

Somebody decided to build addiction into these platforms

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168 pages · Paperback ISBN 978-1-946458-52-0 · ebook ISBN 978-1-946458-73-5

168Pages

7Deadly sins

6xEngagement on anger, per Facebook

280Characters that killed nuance

Somebody decided to build addiction into these platforms

Somebody decided to amplify anger over empathy. Somebody decided engagement mattered more than wellbeing. Somebody decided human attention was a resource to be strip-mined. None of that was an accident or an emergent property. People sat in rooms and chose it.

Facebook’s own researchers found in 2018 that posts generating angry reactions got six times the engagement of posts generating happy ones. They did not fix it. They leaned in, because furious users are profitable users.

Twitter took the logic further and built a product around hot takes, where 280 characters forces nuance out of every exchange by design.

The internet promised to make us more human and has been doing the opposite on a schedule. We can make different choices, but not before we have named what happened. So this book catalogs the sins, one per chapter, starting with wrath.

What is inside

The seven

Wrath, and the rage machine
Greed, and the attention economy
Envy, and the comparison trap
Pride, and the echo chamber

The rest of them

Lust, and digital desire gone wrong
Gluttony, and infinite scroll
Sloth, and outsourced thinking
What each one costs the person doing it

The machinery

Engagement metrics as the root cause
Recommendation systems and radicalization
Anonymity, mobs and consequences
Why regulation keeps missing

Getting out

Using these tools without being used
What to demand and from whom
Building something better
Confession, complicity and what you personally do next

Who this is for

Worth your time if

You feel worse after being online and want to know why
You suspect the anger is manufactured
You want the mechanism instead of the moralizing
You are raising somebody who lives on these platforms

Not for you if

You want a digital detox plan
You believe the platforms are neutral
You want a defense of any particular company
You are looking for policy recommendations specifically

Why me

Richard Lowe, the Writing King

Thirty-three years in enterprise technology, twenty as Director of Computer Operations at Trader Joe’s. I have built systems that shape behavior and sat in the meetings where those decisions get made. What the platforms did was not inevitable. It was chosen, and I know what choosing looks like from the inside.

Questions people ask

Is this an anti-technology book?

No. You don’t have to quit the internet. You just have to stop letting it run you. Every chapter ends with concrete steps you can take to push back, protect yourself, and reclaim control. The final section provides personal strategies for healthier technology relationships and solutions for reforming digital platforms to serve human welfare, not corporate extraction.

What topics does the book cover?

Twenty-six chapters: the attention economy, social media addiction, algorithmic manipulation, echo chambers, dating app commodification, AI bias, gig economy exploitation, political polarization, democratic degradation, cybercrime, digital authoritarianism, and emerging threats from virtual reality and AI automation.

Does the book offer solutions?

Yes. Every chapter ends with concrete steps. Individual digital hygiene, antitrust enforcement, algorithmic transparency, practical paths for technology that serves, not exploits users.

What are the author’s credentials?

Richard Lowe has 45+ years of technology experience, including nearly two decades as Director of Computer Operations for a $16 billion company, and has published more than a hundred books. He brings insider knowledge of how these systems are built alongside the anger of someone tired of watching people get used.

Who should read this book?

Anyone who has ever doomscrolled until 2 a.m., gotten into a screaming match with a stranger online, bought something they didn’t need because an algorithm told them to, or felt vaguely worse about their life after spending an hour on social media. That’s most of us.

Also in Digital Self-Defense

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Protecting the People Who Live in Your House

Ridiculous Things People Actually Believe

A Tour of the Indefensible

The internet promised to make us more human

Taking that back starts with understanding exactly how it was taken.

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Filed underTechnology Social Media Critical Thinking Wellbeing

A chapter

Sins of the Internet

Technology companies hired the same psychologists who design casino games to make their products as addictive as possible. They studied behavioral psychology, addiction science, and human neurology, then engineered every aspect of their platforms to exploit what they learned.

The infinite scroll eliminated natural stopping points that might allow users to put their devices down. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok removed the friction of pagination because stopping to click “next page” gave users a moment to reconsider whether they wanted to continue.

Streak mechanics borrowed from gaming psychology to create artificial urgency around maintaining daily usage patterns. Snapchat streaks turned casual conversation into an anxiety-producing obligation where users felt compelled to send messages daily to avoid losing their streak count.

Red notification badges created visual anxiety that demanded immediate attention. The bright red circles triggered stress responses and compulsive checking behaviors that kept users returning to apps throughout the day.

Autoplay features removed the decision-making friction that might allow users to stop consuming content. YouTube automatically plays the next video before you’ve consciously decided to watch it. Netflix begins the next episode during the credits of the one you just finished.

Social validation addiction turned likes, comments, and shares into digital drugs that triggered dopamine releases in the brain’s reward centers. The unpredictable timing of these rewards, sometimes you get lots of likes, sometimes few, created the same variable ratio reward schedules that make slot machines impossible to walk away from.

FOMO algorithms deliberately withheld content to create artificial scarcity and urgency. Instagram stories disappeared after 24 hours. Limited-time offers and ephemeral content trained users to check apps constantly to avoid missing something.

Social media withdrawal created genuine physical and psychological symptoms when users tried to disconnect. People experienced anxiety, restlessness, irritability, and difficulty concentrating, the same symptoms associated with substance withdrawal. Because they were withdrawing from the same neurochemical processes.

Sins of the Internet

Introduction: The Digital Fall from Grace
Chapter 1: Wrath – The Rage Machine
Chapter 2: Greed – The Attention Economy
Chapter 3: Envy – The Comparison Trap
Chapter 4: Pride – The Echo Chamber
Chapter 5: Lust – Digital Desire Gone Wrong
Chapter 6: Gluttony – Information Overconsumption
Chapter 7: Sloth – The Death of Effort
Chapter 8: Deception – The Age of Unreality
Chapter 9: Vanity – The Performance of Self
Chapter 10: Tribalism – Digital Division
Chapter 11: Amnesia – The Memory Hole
Chapter 12: Apathy – The Illusion of Action
Chapter 13: Addiction – The Dopamine Trap
Chapter 14: Children – The Intended Targets
Chapter 15: Commodification – Everything for Sale
Chapter 16: The Metaverse – Escaping Reality Into Digital Nowhere
Chapter 17: Artificial Intelligence – The Automation of Everything
Chapter 18: Digital Divide – The New Inequality
Chapter 19: Cyberbullying – Digital Cruelty Without Consequences
Chapter 20: Cyberterrorism – Digital Weapons of Mass Disruption
Chapter 21: Cyberwarfare – The Invisible Battlefield
Chapter 22: Cybercrime – The Digital Wild West
Chapter 23: Hacktivism – Digital Vigilantes
Chapter 24: Cyber Espionage – Digital Spies
Chapter 25: Digital Penance – Recognizing the Damage
Chapter 26: Digital Virtue – Building Better Online Habits
Chapter 27: Systemic Solutions – Fixing the Machine
Conclusion: Reclaiming Your Humanity
Glossary

Tagged Social Media, wellness

Sins of the Internet

Somebody decided to build addiction into these platforms

What is inside

Who this is for

Why me

Questions people ask

Also in Digital Self-Defense

The internet promised to make us more human

A chapter

Sins of the Internet

Table of contents

Sins of the Internet

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