Dunno why I remembered "The Quantum Thief" by Hannu Rajaniemi. Basically, you had fine-grained control over what others perceived of you. Your friends can see you completely, while strangers can only see a blur.

It was an amazing book.

Thanks for the book recom.

BTW, I will also recommend 'a hero of our time' by Lermontov. In it, you will get an updated view of what the meaning of 'friends' will be. :)

EDIT: since this is getting upvotes, I will also mention that Lermontov is a descendant of the Learmonts, who were British folk.

Also, the book is small but it's jampacked with a lot of wisdom--street and abstract both-- and presented using a language that shines with poetry, it shines even through translation (Penguin Classics trans. is best).

I know Hannu, and he tells an interesting story about getting his first book published. I should write it up sometime ... in my Copious Free Time ...

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* The Quantum Thief

* The Fractal Prince

* The Causal Angel

Actually, most of the story is on his WikiPedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannu_Rajaniemi

Makes me think of a Black Mirror episode where similar technology ends up with unlucky/unwanted people becoming inaudible blurs in perception of everyone.

As digital dystopias go, this is one of the worst I've seen; the episode ending with this happening to the protagonist shook me to the core.

There was a Black Mirror episode called White Christmas with similar concept.