The world is hooked on ultra-processed feeds - engineered diets of outrage, falsehood and distraction that are reshaping how we think and what we believe. And like ultra-processed food, they are making us sick - eroding trust, fuelling tribalism and loosening our grip on truth.

Seb Butcher is a technology lawyer and former advisor to some of the world's largest companies. In Distorted, he delivers an eye-opening account of how the modern internet is distorting reality itself. Drawing on behavioural science, technology, politics and culture, Butcher reveals the forces behind this distortion - from our own biases to technology addiction, algorithms and generative AI - and why we are splintering into increasingly separate, incompatible worlds.

Clear-eyed, rigorous and deeply human, Distorted is a call to reclaim reality before it's too late. As we enter a new era shaped by AI and rising socio-political tensions, Butcher urges the reader not only to confront their online habits, but to ask deeper questions about technological power and human agency. Part diagnosis, part survival guide, Distorted offers a thoughtful and practical path toward rebuilding trust, restoring human connection and finding common ground in an increasingly fractured world - while we still can.

"With engaging and persuasive prose, Butcher shows how tech's exploitation of human vulnerabilities is steering us toward a dystopian future. His lucid critique of our information economy should serve as a warning to us all." - Katherine Stewart, New York Times bestselling author of Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy

"Every user of social media or AI should read this book to understand how technology is affecting us as individuals and communities and how we can come back from the brink of division and polarisation." - Natasha Devon, author of The Nuance Drought