Of course any information media is an amplifier for actual events. But I think you are minimising what has become a dangerous (although admittedly very complex/

Of course any information media is an amplifier for actual events. But I think you are minimising what has become a dangerous (although admittedly very complex/nuanced) force in society today - which is the general over-reach of digital technologies. It's not just about the content of social media. This is the tobacco moment for tech in general. When your entire world becomes a 6 inch view-port that you're inseparable from it's tantamount to a kind of mental and physical servitude. Electronically tagged convicted criminals suffer less. Physiological harm to eyes, neck, and posture from hunching over, is visible in young people in their 20s. Diminished attention span and poor interpersonal skills is absolutely obvious now. I am seeing devastating mental health issues in the children of friends, kids who have everything to live for and love life, are isolated, glum, and neurotic. When I started researching Digital Vegan [1], late in the game after 2018, my main focus was privacy and the effects of surveillance on adults. In many ways I wanted to assure myself that I was not a total crank who was growing old prematurely and shouting at clouds. As I read more into this area [2] I went through feelings most of us will remember from the start of the pandemic... as anecdotal snippets started to form into coherent narratives and hard evidence, and finally the sinking unavoidable realisation that something BIG is happening. Surveillance capitalism is just one symptom. The rapid growth of decent science around these issues has been dizzying. From Haigt; "I believe I can be most helpful to this committee by first summarizing the academic literature on the changes that have occurred in teen mental health since 2012" This is key! Most of us are entrenched in to-and-fro arguments about what we think are mere opinions and anecdotes. Things have moved past that. As technologists, instead of defending an illusion we identify with like the guys from Exxon who just got news of the first climate report in the 1960s, let's start talking in good faith about how we can fix things - through sustainable, durable open hardware, software freedom, civic cybersecurity and protections from government and corporations, reducing use, educating young people away from social media and towards a healthy, limited use of tech. [1] https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net [2] https://ledger.humanetech.com/ https://ledger.humanetech.com/