Can we take the hatred out of social media?

‘You just have to learn how to do it right,’ says Chris, who now blocks liberally and does not engage in arguments or defend himself against trolls. Illustration: Nate Kitch/The Observer

Back in 2009, Chris Jones, a seasoned staff writer for Esquire US, was given a life-changing assignment – an open-ended, reportage-driven magazine feature on the lives of paramedics. For an entire month, Jones, then in his mid-30s, hurtled around Ottawa, Ontario in a screaming ambulance with a team of first responders.

“There is your life before the truck and there is your life after the truck,” the piece begins. What he learned in that truck would later become a key insight in his latest book, The Eye Test: A Case for Human Creativity in the Age of Analytics. Jones found himself overwhelmed by the noise of the CB radio, which blared a constant stream of panic, one disaster scenario after another – car crashes, house fires, stabbings, seizures and domestic hellscapes.