Our Review of Disconnected by Emma Gannon

Disconnected by Emma Gannon is a small but mighty book that questions how we can stay kind, connected, and compassionate in an often overwhelming, overstimulating, and inauthentic online world.

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The down-low on Disconnected

The official blurb reads...

"Millennials might have grown up online but now they want to log off. And it's not just millennials. A year of lockdowns, Zoom meetings and reduced physical contact has made us more dependent on the internet than ever before - but has it lost its humanity?

Our focus on community and real connection has been sent off-course and we're becoming more aware of how the algorithm manipulates us and how our data has made us a product to be sold. So, where do we go from here and how can we get back on track? (Dis)connected examines these topics and offers tangible tips and advice for those of us who might feel a little lost right now and want to find themselves again."

Why we read it

As creative business owners, we spend a lot of our time online. Whether it's sharing our work on social media, pouring out our thoughts in our email newsletter, or uploading our products and services and praying someone buys, it's all online. And that's just the business-related side of things. We're likely spending just as much time scrolling our friend's feeds, impulse shopping, and playing mindless games.

Being online has so many benefits for our businesses, allowing us to reach clients and customers all around the world, connecting us with our fellow entrepreneurs, giving us the tools we need to learn and grow, and so much more. But it has it's challenges too, pushing us to be visible all day every day, create content that appeases the algorithm, and sometimes encouraging us to shape ourselves to fit a social media success-filled hole.

So many of us now are questioning what this new reality means for us and whether there's a better way to do it. We want to be online, but we want to stay human while we do it. So Emma Gannon's book aptly subtitled "How to Stay Human in an Online World" seemed a great fit for our first book club read. And it won the vote by a mile, so it's clearly something on the minds of us creatives!

Hollie's Review

3/5 Stars

POV: you're watching me nod and "mhmm" through the whole first chapter of this book. Disconnected was such a great confirmation of all of the things I'd been contemplating in my head, but hadn't articulated. Thank God for Emma Gannon! As a brand strategist for creatives, balancing curating a clear brand with expressing your whole self is something I think about a lot, so it was insightful to hear someone else's take on the topics of personal branding and shaping your online persona. And the rest of the book was a brilliant, thought-provoking look at online life too, Emma's anecdotes and examples making all the more relatable. It's a quick read, which is fab if you're low on time, and the actionable tips will give you some ways to put your learnings into practice. It also prompted some amazing discussions in the book club about social media boundaries, non-phone activities, personal social media pages, and more, as well as some big habit changes for a lot of us in the group so that's a win for me!

Sofia's Review

3/5 Stars

Interesting hot topic! Overall the book doesn't mention something that we don't know but I find it important that all this summarised in one book. Emma Gannon statements are very apt and understandable and I believe it is a read that can motivate you to protect yourself from supernatural social media exposure and device addiction.

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