And they were right then, too. I despise the television.

Yeah now compare the interminable stream of marvel movies over the past few years with what was available in the 90s.

The problem with this line of thinking is it's true and it's not. People said TV would make our brains rot. It didn't. But some people certainly are addicted. They said social media would make us lemmings. It didn't. But some people certainly do questionable things due to social influence. When you have countless disruptive technologies like tv and social media, they add up.

Social media is dramatically different in that most kids[0] now have a social media machine in their pocket and at their beck and call all-day-every-day. In years passed during school hours kids had much less dragging their attention away from school work.

[0] The internet tells me that most American kids have mobile phones by age 7.

Your statement is structurally equivalent to saying "People have always said that new media formats are ruining the youth, and they haven't [ed. note: debatable], therefore it's impossible for a new media format to ruin the youth."

I think it's worth thinking about ways in which new media formats are or are not different from old ones, and how that might offer new ways to ruin the youth. For example, comic books cost money, so you're naturally limited in how many you can buy. 1940s through 2000s - era TV/video games require you to be in front of a TV, vs having a handheld device which is accessible 24/7 regardless of where you are.

I would argue that AM Talk Radio and Fox News DID eat people's brains.

The thing preventing brain rot was the uncoordinated, decentralized nature of radio and TV stations. Once TV and radio became monopolies that could provide a unified message, the brain rot set in.

Why do you believe that the social media companies who are monopolies won't wind up the same?

Social media employs some of the smartest, most well educated people in the world with the specific goal of you being 24/7 addicted.

Not even close to the same, you can’t interact with those medium like this. I think social media should be 16+ only.