I think the pervasive availability and highly engineered and data driven optimization for engagement that are possible with phones and social media create a novel condition. You couldn’t play Everquest on the bus, in the toilet, in class, and in bed, but it’s now possible to basically never not be on Facebook. Also, Everquest and TV didn’t have anything like the degree of user data and monitoring that we have now. It seems too soon to tell whether excessive social media use, as such, is a big problem and I will admit that I sometimes perceive a whiff of moral panic but I don’t think it’s reasonable to say there is nothing new here.

What I think is interesting about the events in the article is the way the that politicians and media express concern without proposing anything. Could this kind of talk be reasonably interpreted as a negotiation between Facebook and the political class relating to Facebook’s add sales practices and political influence?

People are certainly talking about excessive social media use whether FB likes it or not. I have seen tons of articles and prominent quotes on the subject of social media harm to health. I just searched for “excessive social media use” and got articles from Forbes, The Telegraph, Time, BBC, HuffPo, thetimes.co.uk, Vancouver University, and a large pile of high impact journal articles that seem to contain related language, like “impact of social media use on children.”

So lots of people are upset but neither Soros nor the author proposed any particular remedy, and the problem sounds awfully hard to clearly understand, let alone to effectively regulate. The economics of social media seem to necessitate maximizing user engagement, and wining at network effect. If Facebook didn’t do it this way, would whoever did have won the space instead? How do we incentivize social media companies to make products that are somewhat compelling, but not too much?

Is it cynical to suppose that politicians are using the implicit threat of regulation and bad press to compel FB to limit it’s add sales and suppress “fake news”, while actually having little appetite to intervene in the interest of public health? Also, are conventional media outlets afraid of Facebook because it threatens their revenue model, and undermines their credibility?