Last week, I shared my thoughts on The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, which examines the impact of social media and smartphones on children and teens.
Building on that, today I want to explore two troubling trends tied to the uncontrolled use of social media: the way low-quality content quietly consumes vast amounts of our time, and how these platforms are used to exploit and manipulate others.
Low-quality content on social media seems endless. You can go to any platform and see short videos of people getting dressed for work, morning routines, people jumping off cliffs, twenty-year-olds explaining how they’re making millions from home—and I even saw a video on LinkedIn of a product, some kind of foot scrubber that makes your feet nice and soft, posted by the Leadership Think Tank. I’m not sure what a foot scrubber has to do with leadership—maybe nice, soft feet will help you in your next company meeting or something.
While doing some research, I found that SixDegrees1 was one of the first social media platforms. Then came Friendster, which focused on real-life social connections, followed by MySpace and many others. All were created to build social networks and improve human connections.
Today, social media has become a vast universe where people share all kinds of content—good and bad—and it’s no longer just about creating meaningful social connections.
For anyone with a social media account, how can you separate the good from the bad and focus on what really matters?
One way to manage social media effectively is through critical ignoring—the ability to decide what to ignore and where to focus our limited attention.2 Developed by Dr. Sam Wineburg and a team at the Stanford History Education Group3, the concept helps us take control of our digital lives instead of letting endless content dictate our focus.
By practicing critical ignoring, we can reduce time wasted on distractions and engage only with what truly matters. This means resisting the urge to click on rage-bait headlines, scrolling past trolls instead of arguing, muting or unfollowing accounts that thrive on outrage, verifying content before sharing it, and letting some “debates” go because they are designed to provoke, not inform.
This diagram, part of the article Critical Ignoring as a Core Competence for Digital Citizens4, includes practical and very useful recommendations.
The diagram identifies the types of distracting information that trigger curiosity, outrage, or anger, and suggests actions we can take to avoid them and improve our experience. I particularly like the recommendation on how to deal with trolls and malicious actors.
The second, and more problematic, issue with social media is its ability to attract people into certain crowds or groups. We see this every day in politics, with hundreds of groups catering to conservatives and liberals. But there are also people using these platforms to target the vulnerable, including children, and to recruit members into cults.
One such platform is Roblox, an online gaming platform. Roblox offers users more than just a gaming experience; it also serves as a medium for communication and connection6. There have been multiple reports of predators using it to lure children.789 I included a number of links in the sources section for those who want to read these reports. It is also interesting to note how some of these predators use Roblox in conjunction with Discord, an instant messaging and VoIP platform that allows communication through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and media sharing10, to pursue their purposes.
Then there is the case of a “pastor” who created a TikTok presence to help social media stars and dancers in Los Angeles. Robert Shinn, pastor of the Shekinah Church, was accused of sex trafficking and money laundering.11 He is reportedly a cult leader who used TikTok to target his victims. There is even a Netflix documentary, Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult12.
Social media has many benefits when used with purpose and moderation, but it also comes with serious risks. As The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt shows, children and teens are especially vulnerable to its effects. Practicing critical ignoring, deciding what to focus on and what to ignore, can help all of us reclaim our attention and protect our time from low-quality content. At the same time, parents can use books like Haidt’s, along with other resources,13 to guide their children in navigating online spaces safely, avoiding pitfalls such as predatory behavior on platforms like Roblox.
What started as a way to strengthen human connections is now a tool that can either enrich our lives or consume them. How we engage with it makes all the difference.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SixDegrees.com ↩︎
- https://spsp.org/news/character-and-context-blog/kozyreva-wineburg-lewandowsky-hertwig-critical-ignoring ↩︎
- https://theconversation.com/to-navigate-the-dangers-of-the-web-you-need-critical-thinking-but-also-critical-ignoring-158617 ↩︎
- Kozyreva, A., Wineburg, S., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2022). Critical Ignoring as a Core Competence for Digital Citizens. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32(1), 81-88. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214221121570(Original work published 2023) ↩︎
- https://journals.sagepub.com/cms/10.1177/09637214221121570/asset/fce36b54-e750-4e14-8360-53d8489a23b3/assets/images/large/10.1177_09637214221121570-fig1.jpg ↩︎
- https://about.roblox.com/newsroom/2023/10/reimagining-bringing-people-together-communication-connection-expression#:~:text=Roblox is a platform for communication and connection. ↩︎
- https://www.businessinsider.com/roblox-online-gaming-giant-child-predator-allegations-lawsuits-2025-8 ↩︎
- https://www.montanarightnow.com/great-falls/roblox-safety-concerns-grow-after-disturbing-crimes/article_6db58a56-f489-11ef-9659-77bd5b263695.html ↩︎
- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/roblox-discord-sued-15-year-old-boy-was-allegedly-groomed-online-died-rcna231049 ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discord ↩︎
- https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-25/feds-raid-tujunga-home-of-alleged-tiktok-cult-pastor-in-sex-trafficking-investigation ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_for_the_Devil ↩︎
- https://www.aap.org/en/patient-care/media-and-children/center-of-excellence-on-social-media-and-youth-mental-health/?srsltid=AfmBOoqqcA0oIEIG8Kk6fg3hFPFztZ1T65W1k_AOrUDEiA9o7IiI1Jrn ↩︎
Thoughts about leadership, history, and more 
I’m making social media less and less of a priority. I was without a computer for two weeks a little while back and it really opened my eyes to how much time I had been wasting on some of the sites. It can be a lovely way to interact with friends who are far away, but so much of it seems to be ads for things that don’t interest me and people bickering over politics. Who has time for that?
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I agree. You can easily waste an entire weekend scrolling through videos and checking out friends’ photos if you’re not careful. I’d rather read a book or watch a movie with the family.
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I love that concept of critical ignoring. I’m particular about who I follow but these platforms are really good at serving up content whether you follow someone or not I have learned to be very disciplined about who and what I engage with. Just ignore the clickbait and keep on scrolling is my motto!
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I agree. LinkedIn is getting really bad, there’s a lot of garbage being circulated, including misinformation. Not even professional networks are safe anymore.
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Good advice. Thanks Edward.
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You’re very welcome, Brad.
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This is a strong reminder that attention is a resource that needs governance, not just willpower. The idea of critical ignoring connects closely to systems thinking because it shifts the focus from reacting to every input to designing an environment where only what truly matters gets through. That kind of intentional filtering is what allows digital habits to support real priorities instead of constantly competing with them.
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Indeed. I like what you said about intentionality, that’s key when engaging with social media and other online resources. Our engagements need to have a purpose, not just be mind-numbing when we are tired. Thank you for reading and commenting.
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You have done a fine job of dealing with Haidt’s work and beginning to deal with the adverse impact of social media.
I don’t think it will be simple for some adults to extricate themselves, however. The “draw” of human contact, keeping up with the Joneses, and wanting to be in the know about life, will not be easily defeated.
I would add the kind of critical intelligence and judgement needed to pull away is not easily achieved. Alone or with few friends, life “lives” in the internet and not outside, except perhaps in one’s job, if one has friends there.
The lure of social media has had time to develop. The victims are behind the curve. Does the Stanford team have a plan to reach and train the folks who would benefit from their recommendations? I hope so.
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Thank you, Dr. Stein. While reading about the Stanford group, I found that they are a robust initiative and have a Digital Inquiry Group that is developing solutions and collaborating with schools, offering training among other things. Even their research has been incorporated into a California law. So there is a lot happening behind the scenes. I wish more of that were brought to our attention.
I agree with you that disengaging from the pull of social media is a difficult task for most people. The attraction is too strong, and the companies, with their algorithms, are doing an excellent job of making the need for social media seem indispensable (I would call it an addiction, but I’m not an expert in that area).
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I never engage with trolls or malicious actors, so I’m okay there. (I witnessed so many emails feuds/wars in my professional career that the “Don’t engage” mantra is automatic.) I’m working on controlling my intake of political content. I’m doing better than I was, but I’m not there yet.
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I’m with you on the political content. I was really bad back when I was watching cable news. My goodness, I spent way too many hours watching news and political commentary. I’m glad I cut that out of my life—I feel much better now.
As for emails at work, I agree, I avoided them when I was angry. I did face-to-face if the person was in the building; if not, I would call them. It’s dangerous to get into that back-and-forth via email.
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