Screen People

'Incisive'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 'A brilliant, funny, omnivorous excavation of how technology and entertainment have warped humanity'
SOPHIE GILBERT, PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST AND AUTHOR OF GIRL ON GIRL
_______ From an award-winning staff writer for the Atlantic, Screen People is an eye-opening look at how the current media landscape conditions us to see everyone as characters in ongoing entertainment - and how we can fight back Whether it's our expertly curated Instagram feeds or the reality-television-star US President, the line between what's real and what's fabricated for entertainment has never been more blurred. Screen People explores what happens when we cede our reality to spectacle and explains how today's internet-inflected culture incentivises us to see one another as characters in a show, and how some of our most chronic and harmful social conditions - loneliness, depression, mistrust, misinformation and cynicism - stem from our demand for diversion. In ten chapters, each themed around an element of entertainment Garber argues that this comedy of our daily lives is quickly becoming tragedy. And we can't understand our politics without first understanding our culture. Screen People shows why Garber is one of the most respected and widely read journalists of our day. This book is an urgent, dazzling look at how we entertained ourselves into our current predicament and shows how we might find our way out of the chaos.

MEGAN GARBER is a staff writer at the Atlantic, where she covers the intersection of politics and entertainment. A 2025 New America / Emerson Collective Fellow and the recipient of a Mirror Award for her writing about the media, Garber is the author of On Misdirection and cohost of the podcast How to Know What's Real. She lives in Washington, DC.