I asked if all it was doing was destroying the world. Then, in a follow-up, I asked you to explain the physics of how it was destroying the world. The emphasis

I asked if all it was doing was destroying the world. Then, in a follow-up, I asked you to explain the physics of how it was destroying the world. The emphasis being on the word 'how' in that question. I didn't mean the literal physics in the sense of tearing the earth apart - I meant the process by which it was eroding culture, community, values, etc. I think that there is a decently strong case to be made that social media, especially certain forms of social media, are in fact doing those things. I think there is a case to be made that advertising generally has helped that along, by allowing social media services to be free for users. I don't really see the case that 'ad tech' has had much to do with that, other than by optimizing the ads seen to make the companies marginally more profitable.