Scroll: How You Became the Product (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798266230606)

You thought you were just scrolling. In reality, you were being sold.

Scroll: How You Became the Product peels back the glossy screen of social media and online life to expose a hard truth: in the attention economy, you are not the customer-you're the merchandise.

With sharp wit and a slightly sarcastic edge, Jason McIlrath takes you on a tour of the digital marketplace where your clicks, likes, and late-night searches are worth more than you realize. From the rise of the "like" button to the eerie accuracy of algorithms that know you better than your family, this book shows how habits, emotions, and even identities have been packaged and auctioned off to the highest bidder.

You'll laugh, you'll cringe, and you'll recognize yourself in these pages as McIlrath unpacks:

• Why "free" apps are anything but free.

• How your scroll patterns are engineered like casino slot machines.

• The way joy, fear, anger, and even grief are monetized in real time.

• Why the algorithm's version of you is more valuable than the real one.

• Whether escape from this cycle is even possible-or just another product to sell.

Equal parts cultural critique and wake-up call, Scroll isn't here to tell you to throw your phone into the ocean. It's here to make you aware of the invisible transactions happening every time you swipe.

Because the truth is simple: you don't own the feed-the feed owns you.