It’s Not Just You: The Internet Is Actually Getting Worse

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Sometimes a term is so apt, its meaning so clear and so relevant to our circumstances, that it becomes more than just a useful buzzword. and grows to define an entire moment.

I'm quoting the New Yorker's technology columnist Kyle Cheeker. The term he's describing, well, it's so evocative that, unfortunately, we can't say it on the air. I immediately grabbed onto it, I knew what it meant, I could apply it in my own experience, because everything just seems to be getting worse all around us, on our phones and on websites. The term is inshidification, and it was coined by Cory Doctoro. I've been following Cory Doctoro's work for years and years on the internet.

He's someone who I always look to to understand what's going on online and how the latest tech policy is changing and how things work. And I when I saw him starting to use this word inshidification. Or everything getting worse. I just immediately understood what he was talking about, I think as we all do. Inshidification was a word of the year in 2023, and now it's the title of Cory Doctorow's new book.

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