[javajosh]

Crucial to what? To making content "better", meaning more potent, more addictive, more alluring than real life?

I'd argue that broadcast TV was an okay middle ground, because if you were addicted you were a couch potato. Now, we are all couch potatoes but without the couch, and without the social opprobrium, or even the opposite!, the world is a generally worse place. I mean, I love 3blue1brown, but is he worth the societal cost?

[Swizec]

I mean, Plato did always complain that writing makes people stupid and kids these days are ruining society because they can’t speak well or remember anything.

And I think books were ruining kids these days in the 1600’s

In 1800’s it was populist flashy newspapers with clickbait headlines

1900’s was radio

1950’s was TV

Now it’s social media

There’s always something. People who want to escape their lives will find a way. The solution is to make the world better, not to gripe about coping strategies.

[javajosh]

You're right. But I don't think it means what you think it means. Consider the problem of gluttony, which has always been a human problem, but which has grown far worse with the advent of industrialized food processing. The feedback loop is very similar, in fact, to the entertainment/information feedback loop that began with the invention of writing. Plato wasn't wrong in kind, only in degree.