Social Media: No Easy Remediation Is Available. Tough Luck.

February 5, 2026

Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.

I am skeptical when poohbahs, self appointed experts, and journalists predict the future. Yeah, what horse will win the Kentucky Derby? Yeah, but did yo8u win the 2025 Derby? Oh, why not? Yep, predictions.

I read “IG Is a Drug”: Internal Messages May Doom Meta at Social Media Addiction Trial.” If you are like me, you might think “IG” means inspector general. Then you have to ask a younger person what “IG” means. You learn that “IG” is zippy talk for Instagram. If you don’s use Instagram, the idea that Instagram is the equivalent of heroin may surprise you. Instagram is in the business of providing a messaging/publishing service so users can share photos, videos, and messages, follow accounts, and distribute content to other “IG” users.

Venice.ai. This image is actually about a B minus.

I am not going to wander through the write up. As a dinobaby, I know that fooling around with social media is a very bad way to spend time. Instead I will select one passage and offer a handful of observations. Here’s the salient snip:

Shorts, YouTube’s feature that rivals TikTok, also is a concern for parents suing, and three years later, documents showed Google choosing to target teens with Shorts, despite research flagging that the “two biggest challenges for teen wellbeing on YouTube” were prominently linked to watching shorts. Those challenges included Shorts bombarding teens with “low quality content recommendations that can convey & normalize unhealthy beliefs or behaviors” and teens reporting that “prolonged unintentional use” was “displacing valuable activities like time with friends or sleep.”

If the information in the write up is one the money, each of the social media firms focused on making money, not on the impact of its social media service on individual users, social norms, or society as a whole.

Several observations:

The impact of social media is obvious. Flows of online information erode thinking, infrastructure, and social norms.
The technology is nifty, and those creating technology are unable, refuse, or prefer to ignore the consequences of what their social media systems do. The problem is related to a lack of an ethical compass. Irrelevant; therefore, just do more clever technology.
Remediation will be difficult if not impossible. Australia is playing a cat and mouse game with 13 year olds who are finding ways to do what they want online.

Net net: The failure of regulators in the last 15 to 20 years is partly to blame. Schools are to blame for allowing mobile phones in classrooms. Parents are to blame because it is easy to give a kid an iPhone and get a break from the “Mommy, mommy, I need…” routine. Remember. I am a dinobaby and impatient with publications that predict how internal documents will have an impact on a trial. Wake up, buttercup.

Stephen E Arnold, February 5, 2026

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, News, Social Media

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.