In a shockingly short time, the internet has bound people around the world together, torn us apart, and changed not just the way we communicate but also who we are and who we can be. It has created a new, wholly unique cultural space in which we all exist - even if we don't participate - and in which we're continually surprised, betrayed, enriched, befuddled. We have churned through platforms and technologies and in turn been churned by them. And yet, the internet is us and always has been.

In Lurking, Joanne McNeil digs deep to identify the primary (if sometimes contradictory) concerns of people online: searching, safety, privacy, identity, community, anonymity, and visibility. She charts what it is that brought people online and what keeps us there even as the social equations of digital life - what we trade, knowingly or otherwise, to reap the benefits of the internet - shift radically beneath us. It is a history we are accustomed to hearing as tales of entrepreneurs, visionaries, and dynamic and powerful corporations; but here is a more profound, intimate story: a personal history of the internet - for the first time, from the point of view of the user.

Long one of the most incisive, ferociously intelligent, and widely respected online cultural critics, McNeil establishes a singular vision of who we are now, illustrates how we became us, and prepares us for how we are to move forward.

(From the back cover)