From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This was a sweet and up-to-the-minute book of about 20 pages, creatively illustrated by Stark, and written in rhyme by Webb. It's about how people are herded and misled by the social media that most of us are hobbled to. I loved the title! Very much my kind of a play on words!
If you wanted to watch something truly scary for Halloween, you should have ditched the usual fare and watched a documentary on Netflix titled The Social Dilemma which is about how the social networks drill down on you and record your every nuance every time you do anything online. They know you better than you know yourself and they have algorithms in place to take advantage of the vast database that they own and that is you, and they will feed you things that are not intended to be necessarily in your best interest, but which are certainly intended to stroke your ego and keep you addicted to the platform you're on. There's a reason people who avail themselves of these services are called 'users'. It's the reason I have zero social media presence.
That was very much a documentary aimed at grown-ups; this book could well be the young children-accessible equivalent, right here. The story explains in terms children can understand, how your 'phantom friend' will come and lure you into seeking approval, getting those all-important likes, going down rabbit holes that reinforce themselves all along the way, and essentially wasting time getting depressed about your life and feeling bad about yourself, buoyed up just enough, now and then from the occasional thrill of finding something you like or that seems designed especially with you in mind, to keep you coming back. It's a sad and dependent way to live, and this book illustrated the dangers admirably - along with the wise choice of the girl to go her own way and follow the beat of her own drum. I commend it as a worthy read.
