What's on your mind? Social media monopolies and noopower

This paper explores the age–old tension between the radical possibilities of thought and the institutions seeking to constrain thought as this tension plays out in social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google. I argue that these social media sites are becoming key institutions of noopower, or the power to modulate thoughts. Older institutions of power, such as states, militaries, and marketers, have begun to exercise noopower through and at social media in an effort to always be on our minds.