And when propaganda is injected into it - subtly, through many channels and methods - it becomes worse. I'm confident that the western world's rightward shift is down to targeted social media campaigns. It doesn't help that said social media stopped checking for fake news and bent the knees to said rightward shift, because money.
On its own, this is interesting. But when you consider that people actually need attention for things like their jobs, the road, their children, &c... it starts to sort of look a bit like a superweapon.