Plot Twist

By: Megan Garber

Published by HarperCollins Publishers, 2026-03-03

<p>From the popular and award-winning staff writer for The Atlantic, an eye-opening look at how the current media landscape has incentivized us to see our fellow citizens as characters in an ongoing entertainment--and how we can fight back against this phenomenon.</p> <p>Whether it's our reality-television-star President or our expertly curated Instagram feeds, the line between fact and fiction--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. Megan Garber explains how today's internet-inflected culture conditions us to see one another not as people but as characters in an ongoing show, and how some of our most chronic and harmful social conditions--loneliness, depression, mistrust, misinformation, cynicism--stem from our demand for diversion.</p> <p>In ten chapters, each themed around an element of entertainment--from "The Producers," who edit our reality, to "The Extras," the strangers we turn into objects of our amusement, to "the Haters," the worshipful Qanon-types who expect the prophecies of their anonymous leader to play out on live television--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.</p> <p>Like The Anxious Generation but about our media diet, Screen People shows why Megan Garber is one of the most respected and widely-read journalists of our day. It is an urgent, page-turning, and dazzling look at how we entertained ourselves into our current predicament, and how we might find our way out of the maze of misinformation and chaos.</p>