Decency is the answer

The CEOs of five major tech companies just went down in flames so badly before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, over social media’s impact on children, that they might have a future as Ivy League college presidents. But how do we fix the problem?

Clearly their platforms are cunningly designed to lure people in and trap them. Indeed I struggle to get off “X” long enough to write this column. And they’re especially dangerous for young people who lack the maturity to, say, consent to a sex change and didn’t grow up reading books that gave contrary brain training. But remember, the internet wasn’t imposed on us at gunpoint.

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Indeed, the cross-partisan roasting of these wealthy, reckless nerds is remarkable partly because of the long-standing cross-partisan giddy enthusiasm for the “world wide web” generally and social media in particular. And they have virtues; one reason I risk distraction is continually going online to grab column-related information fast.

Drive to the library and hope they have a relevant book? No thanks. But let’s revisit the broad enthusiasm across the usual political, social and ideological lines, especially puzzlingly in this polarized era, and see if it helps explain how we got into this mess.

One positive thing was pride in American high-tech prowess, with Facebook, Google etc. the modern........

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