[oblio]

Yes, they are. Almost every one has one or more mobile devices that we carry with us at all times.

These devices have various messaging/social media services that due to social expectations we use to interact with friends, family.

It's very, very hard to laser curate the kind of messaging you get, even if you know how to do it and are willing to do it (for example for some stuff you have to mute friends and family or otherwise block them).

Newspapers were much more hit and miss. You'd have to go out and buy a newspaper, their region was at best national, etc.

It's the proverbial drinking from a firehose.

[curryst]

In absolute terms, you're right. We interact with media more than we ever have before.

The printing press was huge in relative terms, though. There was no mass media before that. The average person was unlikely to be able to read, much less to own any books. Communicating across even relatively short distances was infeasible. Most of the media they consumed was either from the church or at least regulated by the church.

The printing press was huge because the normal person's sphere of possible influence grew 100x. Much in the way that we've 100x-ed again with things like YouTube. The relative increase in sphere of influence is similar, the absolutes are massively different.

[oblio]

True, but I think there's a saying about quantity having a quality all its own.

The printing press was still running at humanly achievable speeds. The new stuff is super sonic. We can't cope with it. Plus with people living longer and longer and the natural neuroplasticity decrease that comes with age, more and more people are vulnerable.

It's the kind of thing that will need to be regulated very carefully and very strongly, because that's what laws are: barriers for when the human psyche fails. Imperfect barriers, but better than nothing.