Choose Your Own Captivity

A provocative exposé of how our attention, behavior, and desires have been co-opted by the “choice box”—a curated set of options that offer a false sense of agency while funneling us down pre-determined paths controlled by a select few Choice boxes are all around us, but chances are you’ve never noticed them. Every time you click on a recommended video, rate an Uber driver, run a Google search, or invest in your 401k, you may think you’re the one calling the shots—but in reality, you’re limited to making the choices that a corporation wants you to make. Today, structured decision-making governs our lives to such an extent that we hardly see it at all. But who designs these choices, and whose interests do they serve? In Choose Your Own Captivity, historian Eli Cook introduces readers to the choice architects who first built these boxes and trapped us inside—from the maze-building eugenicist who invented the multiple-choice test to the marketing gurus who sold off our supermarket shelves to a few ultra-processed food giants. In less than a generation, architects like these have transformed a handful of online platforms into the richest businesses in the world. And by determining our options, controlling our actions, and even shaping our identities, they have laid the groundwork for the winner-takes-all game of digital capitalism that dominates us today. In a society built around the promise of free choice and personal responsibility, Cook argues, these hidden architects might just have the greatest power of all. A propulsive and vivid history, Choose Your Own Captivity opens readers’ eyes to the immense power of the choice box—and how to escape it.