![[Review] The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media (Kevin Driscoll) Summarized](https://episodes.castos.com/660078c6833215-59505987/images/2365454/c1a-085k3-6z9n5kvzb58p-jvjpft.jpg)
Show Notes
The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media (Kevin Driscoll)
- Amazon USA Store: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09TL1HPB5?tag=9natree-20
- Amazon Worldwide Store: https://global.buys.trade/The-Modem-World%3A-A-Prehistory-of-Social-Media-Kevin-Driscoll.html
- eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=The+Modem+World+A+Prehistory+of+Social+Media+Kevin+Driscoll+&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339060787&customid=9natree&toolid=10001&mkevt=1
- Read more: https://english.9natree.com/read/B09TL1HPB5/
#internethistory #bulletinboardsystems #dialupmodemculture #onlinecommunities #socialmediaprehistory #platformgovernance #digitalculture #TheModemWorld
These are takeaways from this book.
Firstly, Dial up networks as the foundation of online social life, A central topic is how the technical realities of dial up networking shaped the earliest forms of online social interaction. The book highlights the material constraints that defined participation: phone bills, busy signals, slow connections, limited storage, and software that required tinkering. These limitations did not merely slow communication; they influenced what kinds of communities formed and how people behaved. Short messages, asynchronous posting, and carefully curated time online encouraged different rhythms of conversation than always on mobile apps. The modem also made connectivity intensely local and personal. Users often accessed a nearby system through a local phone call, and the geography of telephone exchanges mattered. This produced networks that felt like neighborhood commons, even when they connected strangers. Attention is also given to the culture of troubleshooting and experimentation that emerged from unreliable connections. Learning to connect, configure, and persist became part of belonging. By foregrounding infrastructure, the book reframes social media as something built on specific economic and technical arrangements, not just new ideas. That perspective helps readers see continuity between early network constraints and today’s platform design choices that still channel attention, shape norms, and determine who can participate.
Secondly, Bulletin board systems and the invention of online community norms, The book treats bulletin board systems as laboratories where many social media conventions were tested long before major platforms existed. BBS spaces combined message boards, private mail, file libraries, and live chat, often managed by volunteer operators who had to set rules and maintain order. This created early versions of moderation, community guidelines, bans, and reputation systems. Driscoll emphasizes that online community did not spontaneously happen once people could connect; it was actively organized and contested. Different boards developed distinct cultures, whether oriented toward local meetups, niche hobbies, technical help, political discussion, or social flirting. Because BBS communities were relatively small, norms were visible and enforcement was personal, with system operators acting as both hosts and gatekeepers. The book also explores how identity operated in these settings through handles, pseudonyms, and emerging etiquette about disclosure and trust. Even in text only environments, users built status, friendships, rivalries, and shared rituals. By examining these practices, the book makes a broader argument that social media is not defined primarily by features like likes or feeds, but by recurring social problems of scale, governance, and belonging. Many contemporary debates echo these earlier struggles, only amplified by global reach.
Thirdly, Commercialization and the path from hobbyist systems to platforms, Another major theme is the shift from largely hobbyist run systems toward commercial online services and the beginnings of platform economics. Early networked communities often depended on unpaid labor and a gift economy of software sharing, technical advice, and volunteer administration. Over time, companies sought to package access, simplify onboarding, and monetize user activity through subscriptions, advertising, and proprietary ecosystems. The book outlines how this transition changed incentives and power. When participation is mediated by a company rather than a local operator, questions of governance, user autonomy, and accountability take on a different character. Commercial services also standardized interfaces and practices, which could broaden access while reducing the diversity of local cultures. The story is not a simple loss or progress narrative; it shows tradeoffs between openness, usability, and control. Driscoll connects these developments to wider policy and market conditions, including telecommunications structures that affected pricing and availability. Readers are encouraged to see today’s social platforms as the result of incremental decisions about business models and infrastructure, not an inevitable technological destiny. Understanding the earlier period clarifies why surveillance based advertising, centralized rule making, and rapid scaling became dominant strategies, and why alternatives have struggled to compete even when communities desire different values.
Fourthly, Identity, access, and the social politics of early online spaces, The book examines who could get online in the modem era and how access shaped culture. Connectivity required equipment, technical knowledge, and time, and those requirements created barriers that filtered participation by class, geography, age, and institutional affiliation. Driscoll explores how these conditions influenced the demographics and norms of early online communities, as well as how users negotiated identity through anonymity and pseudonymity. The modem world enabled experimentation with self presentation, but it also reproduced offline inequalities and introduced new forms of exclusion. Community gatekeeping could occur through technical elitism, insider jargon, or social dynamics that discouraged newcomers. At the same time, some groups found opportunities to connect beyond local constraints, building support networks and subcultures that were difficult to sustain offline. The book links these dynamics to present day questions about digital divides, harassment, and the uneven distribution of visibility and voice. By presenting social media as a long running project shaped by who is allowed in and how they are treated once inside, the narrative challenges simplistic claims that early internet culture was inherently free or inherently toxic. Instead it emphasizes continual negotiation: access policies, community norms, and technical design collectively determine whether networked spaces expand participation or narrow it.
Lastly, Continuities with today: governance, moderation, and platform power, A final key topic is how the modem era anticipates many contemporary issues often framed as new. The book illustrates that moderation dilemmas, conflicts over free expression, spam and abuse, and disputes about authority existed in earlier systems, though at smaller scales. System operators and community leaders developed practical tools and social strategies to handle disruptive behavior, from rule posting to selective access and community enforcement. When systems grew or interconnected, these problems intensified, foreshadowing what happens when platforms attempt to manage millions of users. Driscoll uses this prehistory to argue that platform power is not solely a product of modern algorithms. It also arises from longstanding tensions between user driven community life and the infrastructures that make it possible. Decisions about interoperability, control of user data, and the right to define acceptable speech were present in earlier forms, even if the terminology was different. Readers come away with a richer sense that the challenges of social media are structural and recurring, not simply the result of a few bad apps. By connecting past and present, the book equips readers to evaluate reform proposals more realistically, recognizing which problems are deeply rooted and which are shaped by specific design and business choices that could be changed.
- Amazon USA Store: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09TL1HPB5?tag=9natree-20
- Amazon Worldwide Store: https://global.buys.trade/The-Modem-World%3A-A-Prehistory-of-Social-Media-Kevin-Driscoll.html
- eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=The+Modem+World+A+Prehistory+of+Social+Media+Kevin+Driscoll+&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339060787&customid=9natree&toolid=10001&mkevt=1
- Read more: https://english.9natree.com/read/B09TL1HPB5/
#internethistory #bulletinboardsystems #dialupmodemculture #onlinecommunities #socialmediaprehistory #platformgovernance #digitalculture #TheModemWorld
These are takeaways from this book.
Firstly, Dial up networks as the foundation of online social life, A central topic is how the technical realities of dial up networking shaped the earliest forms of online social interaction. The book highlights the material constraints that defined participation: phone bills, busy signals, slow connections, limited storage, and software that required tinkering. These limitations did not merely slow communication; they influenced what kinds of communities formed and how people behaved. Short messages, asynchronous posting, and carefully curated time online encouraged different rhythms of conversation than always on mobile apps. The modem also made connectivity intensely local and personal. Users often accessed a nearby system through a local phone call, and the geography of telephone exchanges mattered. This produced networks that felt like neighborhood commons, even when they connected strangers. Attention is also given to the culture of troubleshooting and experimentation that emerged from unreliable connections. Learning to connect, configure, and persist became part of belonging. By foregrounding infrastructure, the book reframes social media as something built on specific economic and technical arrangements, not just new ideas. That perspective helps readers see continuity between early network constraints and today’s platform design choices that still channel attention, shape norms, and determine who can participate.
Secondly, Bulletin board systems and the invention of online community norms, The book treats bulletin board systems as laboratories where many social media conventions were tested long before major platforms existed. BBS spaces combined message boards, private mail, file libraries, and live chat, often managed by volunteer operators who had to set rules and maintain order. This created early versions of moderation, community guidelines, bans, and reputation systems. Driscoll emphasizes that online community did not spontaneously happen once people could connect; it was actively organized and contested. Different boards developed distinct cultures, whether oriented toward local meetups, niche hobbies, technical help, political discussion, or social flirting. Because BBS communities were relatively small, norms were visible and enforcement was personal, with system operators acting as both hosts and gatekeepers. The book also explores how identity operated in these settings through handles, pseudonyms, and emerging etiquette about disclosure and trust. Even in text only environments, users built status, friendships, rivalries, and shared rituals. By examining these practices, the book makes a broader argument that social media is not defined primarily by features like likes or feeds, but by recurring social problems of scale, governance, and belonging. Many contemporary debates echo these earlier struggles, only amplified by global reach.
Thirdly, Commercialization and the path from hobbyist systems to platforms, Another major theme is the shift from largely hobbyist run systems toward commercial online services and the beginnings of platform economics. Early networked communities often depended on unpaid labor and a gift economy of software sharing, technical advice, and volunteer administration. Over time, companies sought to package access, simplify onboarding, and monetize user activity through subscriptions, advertising, and proprietary ecosystems. The book outlines how this transition changed incentives and power. When participation is mediated by a company rather than a local operator, questions of governance, user autonomy, and accountability take on a different character. Commercial services also standardized interfaces and practices, which could broaden access while reducing the diversity of local cultures. The story is not a simple loss or progress narrative; it shows tradeoffs between openness, usability, and control. Driscoll connects these developments to wider policy and market conditions, including telecommunications structures that affected pricing and availability. Readers are encouraged to see today’s social platforms as the result of incremental decisions about business models and infrastructure, not an inevitable technological destiny. Understanding the earlier period clarifies why surveillance based advertising, centralized rule making, and rapid scaling became dominant strategies, and why alternatives have struggled to compete even when communities desire different values.
Fourthly, Identity, access, and the social politics of early online spaces, The book examines who could get online in the modem era and how access shaped culture. Connectivity required equipment, technical knowledge, and time, and those requirements created barriers that filtered participation by class, geography, age, and institutional affiliation. Driscoll explores how these conditions influenced the demographics and norms of early online communities, as well as how users negotiated identity through anonymity and pseudonymity. The modem world enabled experimentation with self presentation, but it also reproduced offline inequalities and introduced new forms of exclusion. Community gatekeeping could occur through technical elitism, insider jargon, or social dynamics that discouraged newcomers. At the same time, some groups found opportunities to connect beyond local constraints, building support networks and subcultures that were difficult to sustain offline. The book links these dynamics to present day questions about digital divides, harassment, and the uneven distribution of visibility and voice. By presenting social media as a long running project shaped by who is allowed in and how they are treated once inside, the narrative challenges simplistic claims that early internet culture was inherently free or inherently toxic. Instead it emphasizes continual negotiation: access policies, community norms, and technical design collectively determine whether networked spaces expand participation or narrow it.
Lastly, Continuities with today: governance, moderation, and platform power, A final key topic is how the modem era anticipates many contemporary issues often framed as new. The book illustrates that moderation dilemmas, conflicts over free expression, spam and abuse, and disputes about authority existed in earlier systems, though at smaller scales. System operators and community leaders developed practical tools and social strategies to handle disruptive behavior, from rule posting to selective access and community enforcement. When systems grew or interconnected, these problems intensified, foreshadowing what happens when platforms attempt to manage millions of users. Driscoll uses this prehistory to argue that platform power is not solely a product of modern algorithms. It also arises from longstanding tensions between user driven community life and the infrastructures that make it possible. Decisions about interoperability, control of user data, and the right to define acceptable speech were present in earlier forms, even if the terminology was different. Readers come away with a richer sense that the challenges of social media are structural and recurring, not simply the result of a few bad apps. By connecting past and present, the book equips readers to evaluate reform proposals more realistically, recognizing which problems are deeply rooted and which are shaped by specific design and business choices that could be changed.
