The Recession Goes Viral

"Every modern recession includes a media séance about how horrible things are and how much worse they will be," David Carr writes in today's New York Times, "but there have never been so many ways for the fear to leak in. The same digital dynamics that drove the irrational exuberance—and marketed the loans to help it happen—are now driving the downside in unprecedented ways." In any given morning, Carr braves televisions in taxi cabs and elevators, news tickers in Times Square, email alerts, online advertisements, and instant messages that all feed the fear. "This recession got deeper faster because we knew more bad stuff quickly," Carr writes. "I used to worry that my TiVo thought I was gay—doesn't everyone enjoy a little Project Runway at the end of a long, hard week? Now I worry that my browser knows I am about to lose my job."