How does the mass media (including social media) control people?
The most obvious way, and which gains nearly all of the attention, is in terms of propaganda. So the mass/social media is full of propaganda in favour of the sexual revolution, against Christianity; in favour of Leftism and against traditional values (e.g marriage, family, biologically functional sexuality) and so forth.
But this is to miss the main point about content — which is the absence of content and the nature of assumptions.
The mass media simply eliminates all serious concerns.
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But the main problem is the form not the content. The main problem with modern media addiction is that it shapes the way people think.
For a start, it takes-up attention for a large and increasing proportion of the day.
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Then the attention is grabbed, manipulated, switched — again and again, thousands of times a day. This trains the mind positively to expect and want such attention switching, and negatively to become unable to hold attention — and rapidly to become bored by situations that lack this stream of attention-grabbing and rapidly changing stimuli.