My personal TBR pile is probably four hundred books deep, honestly. It’s full of non-fiction reads on obscure topics, books for work, fiction, and even some cookbooks. In my personal life, I’m a mood reader, so I could tell you the top line of my Kindle, but I may also read those books in 2028. So! Here’s the next five books in my pile for work – as of June 2024.
1. The Anxious Generation
Y’all this thing is so hyped and from a lot of people I trust – not just Twitter. Author Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist who researches teen mental illness and has for decades. Our disciplines have overlap, but are definitely distinct, so it will be good to read his data and interpretations and recommendations. We are obviously as concerned as anyone about the destabilizing mental effects of social media and I’m always grateful for more data to help shape my anxiety (see what I did there?)
2. Because Internet
Our next book (at this moment) is looking at the intersection between technology, belonging, burnout, and generational transitions. And obviously the evolution of the internet – both technologically and socially – is at the core of that intersection. Figured I should learn how to speak its language beyond the mishmash coding I learned building my own Geocities page.
3. The Chaos Machine
See the above two reasons: this one is another (and slightly older) treatise on the topics. It’s a book that’s on every “learn about social media’s impact on human brains” list and it’s past time I dove into it.
4. Super Fandom
In my current obsession with the idea of forming belonging over the Internet and/or around either a fictional property or a sports team, I’ve been itching to read this one for a while. People form belonging with others for a host of reasons, but my theory as I type this is that both of these categories of hobby (for lack of a better word) bring out specific socialization benefits that some other belonging cultivators may not. I could be totally wrong! I hope this book helps me narrow my questions or ask completely new ones.
5. Game Misconduct
“Hockey culture is toxic” is thrown around the sport like a foregone conclusion. I’m new to the fandom of actively following the sport, but Erin has been involved since she was basically born. I’ve heard from her for ages about the particularities of hockey culture, and the more I observe it myself, the more questions I have. This book is regularly recommended and I look forward to digging into it.
That’s my TBR pile (for now). I hope to get through these five by the end of the summer and that these will spur on more books to add to the pile. What are you excited to read?
