Whenever I read books written by contemporary writers, I feel like most novels do not make good use of internet in their stories. I know some romantic books nowadays usually make good use of chats online to develop their plot, but what I mean is something a little deeper. For example, when we read The Stranger by Camus, written 80 years ago, we know from the first paragraph that Meursault's mother has died at a retirement home because of a telegram message, and it feels completely natural because it was the technology of the time. Same with TV and radio in plots from 1970-2000. There are countless scenes where someone enters a pub and the radio is playing, or a match is being watched on TV, or maybe something happens, the media is coming and in a couple of ours the whole country will know it thanks to live broadcasting. Nowadays we are informed by internet, follow influencers, use social media to form opinions and also let them change our mood. But they seem to me a little too absent from fiction.
It seems like social media are only mentioned in stories when authors want them to be the main character, but have a hard time turning them into the environment, just like social media is for most of us. There are certain conversations we only have by phone now, there are certain products we mostly buy without visiting a shop, and there are certain friends and groups with that are connected everyday in servers and chat groups. Despite all the problems that impacts us, there's a certain level of this that's just normal to us and we wouldn't probably want to destroy if we could cast a spell against internet to solve all the downsides they cause to our society.
So I was wondering if you guys could recommend novels you guys have enjoyed that are really good at using internet and social media as part of the environment the way I'm trying to describe.
by Felino_de_Botas