Comment by ChoHag

> First, because the social media is not reading, or newspapers, it's a different thing altogether

Are you suggesting that historical books and newspapers were not pandering to populist whims? Of course they did. Is the difference the precision of the targeting? That sounds like a difference of degree not of substance.

> It did create yellow journalism, it did create tabloids, it did redefine truth, and recalibrate leisure, and it did create doomscrolling, and make people think in different—and not necessarily better—ways.

It also created the article we just read and this web site to find it on.

> Maybe all we can do is listen to what people living through that change said

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.