Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
If it is true that a »Zeitenwende« is underway, then a primary driver has surely been the rise of digital social media. Ubiquitously available, they have irrevocably changed how we think, feel, and debate. The forms of communication they provide have fueled vaccine skepticism, conspiracy thinking, rigidity, the loss of empathy and compassion, the inability to compromise, and the placement of personal beliefs above all else. Today’s society is undergoing an unparalleled stress test as we reckon with the digital revolution and its consequences.
Eva Menasse, born in Vienna in 1970, has lived in Berlin since 1999. Originally a journalist with profil and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, she works today as a writer and essayist. She is the recipient of the Heinrich Böll Prize (2013), the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize (2017), and the Ludwig Börne Prize (2019), among other distinctions. Most recently she published the novel »Dunkelblum« (2021). Her next book, Alles und nichts sagen, about mass communication in the digital age, will appear in the fall of this year.
If it is true that a »Zeitenwende« is underway, then a primary driver has surely been the rise of digital social media. Ubiquitously available, they have irrevocably changed how we think, feel, and debate. The forms of communication they provide have fueled vaccine skepticism, conspiracy thinking, rigidity, the loss of empathy and compassion, the inability to compromise, and the placement of personal beliefs above all else. Today’s society is undergoing an unparalleled stress test as we reckon with the digital revolution and its consequences.
Eva Menasse, born in Vienna in 1970, has lived in Berlin since 1999. Originally a journalist with profil and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, she works today as a writer and essayist. She is the recipient of the Heinrich Böll Prize (2013), the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize (2017), and the Ludwig Börne Prize (2019), among other distinctions. Most recently she published the novel »Dunkelblum« (2021). Her next book, Alles und nichts sagen, about mass communication in the digital age, will appear in the fall of this year.
