I’ll be honest, I already knew most of these things already. I already knew that we as people are not the clients, we are the consumers; that social media has almost zero regulations or testing and is not safe for young children; that to have an online presence is like a full-time job that you are constantly checking in on and learning new things about.

What I love about this novel is that it acknowledges that you know all this. Dr. Regehr starts out by saying that she knows parents are already overwhelmed by the concerns that have been raised about life on the internet and the tips they’ve been instructed to use to guide their children. Her goal is not to further overwhelm, but to provide an all-in-one manual for these tips so that parents and non-parents alike can benefit from her research.

I think the amount of parenting tips was understated, but I still found myself leaning in to listen. I learned about the concept of sharenting, what a ‘filter bubble’ is, who Molly Rose is (RIP) and why she means so much to this movement, and how you can use screen time to your advantage. Have you ever noticed that we’re called ‘users’ of the internet, and the only other industry where consumers are called users is the drug industry? I didn’t, until it was pointed out here. I also hadn’t thought so deeply about how we should hold companies responsible until the dynamic was brought up here - sure, I believe that companies should have regulations for social media, but how exactly that would be carried out wasn’t much of my concern until it was explored in the novel.

Whenever I read a book, watch a movie, listen to a song, anything like that, I always factor in to my opinion, “would I buy a copy of this to keep for myself?” The answer for Smartphone Nation is, no, I wouldn’t. I found very quickly that I wasn't the target audience (even though it was still partially intended for me). However, I would totally recommend this to, really, anyone who wants to know more about the internet and the large conglomerates that control us. There’s so much valuable information here that I think everyone should know.

As Ada Limón states in this copy of her closing speech as the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, her goal was to make a case for poetry: to “promot[e] the reading and writing of poetry on a national scale.” This is a quick read, only about 50 pages, but don’t mistake it for a light read. The purpose is to make you feel as though you are in the room when she gives this speech, so that you are empowered to give poetry a chance, to make some room in your life for all that it has to offer.

I believe that this speech succeeds in its goal. Every line is brilliantly spoken, each paragraph thoughtfully crafted, and the whole thing beautifully shapes an idea in your mind of a world we could live in. And we can do it now.

You don’t have to buy a copy if you don’t want to pay a dollar a page; I read it within an hour at my local library. But give it a chance. You might not love it, and that’s okay. But to quote Limón once again, “… please love something."

Picked up this one in the library and thought it would be different from what I normally read. Dean has mastered the art of writing so that your reader feels like they’re walking on eggshells the entire time, and that’s great. But I got 90 pages in, allowed myself to look up spoilers to see if I wanted to continue, and decided to DNF it. For someone whose trauma was bred in this type of environment, where gaslighting and walking on eggshells was the norm, I felt like I was suffocating while reading this. Definitely a very sensitive read.