Most of the public chafes at the thought of being reduced to a number, but Steffen Mau argues that the mediation of mobile technology and social media is doing just that. While not a new argument, this analysis demonstrates that ratings, rankings, and tracking result in the quantified measurement of our “human-ness.”

Ten chapters (each 20 pages or less) cover topics such as “The Measurement of Social Value,” “Status Competition and the Power of Numbers,” “The Evaluation Cult: Stars and Points,” “Risks and Side Effects,” “Transparency and Discipline,” and so on. Most of the arguments and analysis are based on sociology and political analysis, and there is little technical content or analysis of issues such as encryption, data analytics, databases, or the like.

The final chapter, “The Inequality Regime of Quantification,” seems to summarize the takeaway and worldview of the author. Subsections here include “Establishment of Worth,” “Reputation Management,” “Collectives of Non-Equals,” “From Class Conflict to Individual Competition,” “Inescapability and Status Fluidity,” and “Self-Reinforcing Effects.”

The index is fairly comprehensive and the references are generally up to date. Readers seeking a social science perspective without technical details will be the best audience. All topics are based on the negative; the possible positive ripple effects of social media, for example, social movements in the Middle East and Asia or building social networks among refugees/immigrants, are ignored.

Clearly the author would prefer a traditional class-based struggle to identity politics, and I do not care to argue the contrary. The author is a professor of macrosociology in Berlin, and the philosophical basis seems to be a European macro-analytic framework. While I am very sympathetic to the political/economic outlook, this volume does not significantly add to the analysis or solutions.

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