#Infographic - a short history of social media - by google search volumes - worldwide monthly 2004-2024

All things must pass... except perhaps Reddit?

(by @chartrdaily) pic.twitter.com/B1Jp2xn6Vc

— Information is Beautiful (@infobeautiful) February 11, 2025

Therapy instead of ...

 

4min 20sec clip - 5 iPhone Video Tips to Get Cinematic Social Media Videos

All Social Media Terms of Service Explained in 3 Minutes

False stories around Nicola Bulley - will any media be held accountable?

Following the discovery of Nicola Bulley's body the family released a statement.  

In short it accuses the media of publishing lies, and social media of doing the same. Specifically the statement says Sky News and ITV ignored request for privacy.  Finally it calls such behaviour out as appalling and says those who behaved in such a way need to be held accountable.

In a bit more detail here are the four main points of the family's statement

• Press & members of the public wrongly accused, misquoted and villified family and friends;
• They ran stories to sell papers and increase their own profiles;
• Sky News and ITV ignored our request for privacy, contacting us directly;
• This behaviour is appalling and they have to be held accountable;

And below is the family statement in full, issued following confirmation that her body had been recovered from the River Wyre.

Sadly the current situation in the UK means legal action may only be possible where publications/posts are defamatory, (caused or is likely to cause serious harm’ to individuals’  reputation) or invade privacy, or incite violence, hatred or terrorism.  It is an offence to send a message over a public electronic communication network that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.  Also prohibited is electronic communication  which is indecent, grossly offensive, or which is false, or which the sender believes to be false (if the purpose or one of the purposes of the sender is to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient).

In the UK regulators can take various actions but their powers seem limited.

Bulley family statement in full

"Our Family Liaison officers have had to confirm our worst fears today.  We will never be able to comprehend what Nikki had gone through in her last moments and that will never leave us.  We will never forget Nikki, how could we, she was the centre of our world, she was the one who made our lives so special and nothing will cast a shadow over that.  

Our girls will get the support they need from the people who love them the most.  And it saddens us to think that one day we will have to explain to them that the press and members of the public accused their dad of wrongdoing, misquoted and vilified friends and family. This is absolutely appalling, they have to be held accountable this cannot happen to another family.

We tried last night to take in what we had been told in the day, only to have Sky News and ITV making contact with us directly when we expressly asked for privacy. They again, have taken it upon themselves to run stories about us to sell papers and increase their own profiles. It is shameful they have acted in this way. Leave us alone now.  Do the press and other media channels and so called professionals not know when to stop? These are our lives and our children's lives.

To those who genuinely helped and supported us, privately, we thank you. The community support in St Michael's, friends', neighbours and strangers has been nothing short of comforting and heart-warming. 

Friends you know who you are. Thank you.

Our hearts truly break for others who have missing loved ones. Keep that hope alive. Finally, Nikki, you are no longer a missing person, you have been found, we can let you rest now.  We love you, always have and always will, we'll take it from here xx."

4min 50sec clip - Social media addiction - how it changes your brain | Luke Burgis | Big Think

3min 15sec clip - 5 Crazy Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain Right Now

Twitter thread from @RobertGReeve - you're social media #apps aren't #listening to you - but frankly they don't need to

So compared with stuff where you do the listening, here's what happens when you're on the internet ...Source and HT to  https://twitter.com/RobertGReeve/status/1397032784703655938

"First of all, your social media apps are not listening to you. This is a conspiracy theory. It's been debunked over and over again.

But frankly they don't need to because everything else you give them unthinkingly is way cheaper and way more powerful.  Your apps collect a ton of data from your phone. Your unique device ID. Your location. Your demographics. 

Data aggregators pay to pull in data from EVERYWHERE. When I use my discount card at the grocery store? Every purchase? That's a dataset for sale.  They can match my Harris Teeter purchases to my Twitter account because I gave both those companies my email address and phone number and I agreed to all that data-sharing when I accepted those terms of service and the privacy policy. 

Here's where it gets truly nuts, though.  If my phone is regularly in the same GPS location as another phone, they take note of that. They start reconstructing the web of people I'm in regular contact with.

The advertisers can cross-reference my interests and browsing history and purchase history to those around me. It starts showing ME different ads based on the people AROUND me.  Family. Friends. Coworkers.

It will serve me ads for things I DON'T WANT, but it knows someone I'm in regular contact with might want. To subliminally get me to start a conversation about, I don't know, fucking toothpaste.  It never needed to listen to me for this. It's just comparing aggregated metadata.

The other thing is, this is just out there in the open. Tons of people report on this. It's just, nobody cares. We have decided our privacy just isn't worth it. It's a losing battle. We've already given away too much of ourselves.

Your data isn't just about you. It's about how it can be used against every person you know, and people you don't. To shape behavior unconsciously."

 

17min @thecrashcourse clip - Social Media: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #10

text from you tube "In our series finale, we're going to talk about the great white whale of navigating online information: your social media feed. Social media shapes both our online and offline behaviors from how we engage in communities and consume goods and services to influencing our thoughts and opinions. So let's talk about how they really function - the good stuff and also the terrible stuff.

We know that navigating our current information environment can be frustrating, and we hope this series has helped you develop the habits to navigate our digital world a bit more confidently. Thanks so much for watching!

13min @

Text from yoputube "The architecture of the social internet itself tells us not to be patient - to load more tweets, to hit refresh for new posts, and to click the top search results. But just because information is new, or algorithmically determined to be most relevant to you, doesn't necessarily mean it's the best or most accurate. So today we're going to teach you some tips to exercise a little more click restraint on the Internet. "

7min @thersa clip - How the Internet is Killing Democracy with Jamie Bartlett

Text from youtube "Should you really be shocked by the Facebook revelations? Author and Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, Jamie Bartlett argues that our fragile political system is being threatened by the digital revolution. Watch Jamie Bartlett, bestselling author!

#fridayfacts Social Media usage - from Ofcom's report

3 great #Liedentity @GlosDioc clips - Increasingly, many young people are sourcing their identities from social media & advertising, & in the process losing their self-esteem, which is one of the reasons why the campaign is called #liedentity

Liedentity #1: how does social media make you feel?



Text from youtube "We asked teenagers from across the region how image-first social media made them feel. We had some amazing responses." More information from www.gloucester.anglican.org/liedentity



Liedentity #2: We visit Stroud High School for Girls


Text from youtube "This case study shows Bishop Rachel's visit and discussion with two different year groups at Stroud High School. Visit www.gloucester.anglican.org/liedentity for more information and resources



Liedentity #3: What can we do to change the message together?


Text from youtube "Visit www.gloucester.anglican.org/liedentity for more information and resources. "

Why #socialmedia demands a revolution in #mission - a lecture sponsored by @youthscape and @stmellitus

This Monday I attended the 1st ever annual youthwork lecture sponsored by @Youthscape and @stmellitus .  It was held at  St. Mellitus College in Collingham Road, London SW5.  With a #SMCYS hashtag for tweets on the event its Eventbrite information was titled "The Stories In Which We Find Ourselves: Why social media demands a revolution in mission".

Free audio form the event is here.  The event was specifically aimed at those working with young people.  But the issues it raised on social media obviously have a wider application to all social media users the church engages with. The picture below is a mega summary of the points I took away. What follows after that is my take on the event in more detail - along with some of the slides shown and commentary provided by the speakers.  

As it happens the event coincided with some other events on similar topics this week:

- Monday's seminar in Oxford entitled Theological Futures: Digital and Ecological  - discussing issues like 'What is the nature of the “hope” that will be required for human beings to navigate the challenges posed to us by the contemporary ecological crisis? '

- Tuesday's #liedentity conference run by the Diocese of Gloucester with @BishGloucester- which addressed the growing issue of negative body image and the resulting mental and physical health difficulties especially for young people.

- Today's announcement that MPs on the Commons Science and Technology Committee are to investigate the impact of social media and screens on youth. "We want to determine the scale of the issues - separating out the understandable concerns from the hard evidence, and to identify what practical measures people are already taking to boost the benefits and blunt the potential harms. "

A BIT MORE DETAIL

Doors opened 6pm, nibbles and drinks were available and the event started at 6.30pm and finished 8.30pm.  



Introduction

After a brief series of plugs for St. Mellitus courses and some Youthscape research coming out next Monday St. Mellitus' Alice Smith @youthworkmum - their youth work tutor - 

introduced the event and its format. There were three parts to the lecture - a short overview of social media platforms, a longer reflection on the philosophical/theological issues surrounding social media, a third section on thoughts as to what this all meant for youth workers and a Q&A at the end. 




An overview of young people's use of social media

@lahnapottle - a specialist on 16-19 year olds from Youthscape - led this first session.  Lahna gave a quick overview of Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, You Tube, WhatsApp, Facebook and music.ly .  Common features across many of these platforms were various filters for editing pictures to allow the "perfect" selfie to be posted. 

- Some like Snapchat and Instagram only kept pictures shared for a limited time before they were deleted and gone for ever, (although as I recall other apps/phones can capture smartphone screen images - so the auto-delete functionality doesn't guarantee pictures won't be stored elsewhere and shared later).  

- Snapchat's Streaks feature keeps track of the number of consecutive days of messaging between friends - so people refer to a "200 day streak" - and some young people use this measure to quantify how serious their friendships are.

- Youtube's autoplay feature starts up the next clip when the current one has finished.  So people can easily spend a lot of time on youtube watching clips served up to them by the sites' algorithms.  90% of 13-17yr olds use YouTube and the site has created a number of new stars.  Younger people watch more youtube than cable or TV.

- A current top 10 app for 11-13 year olds is Musical.ly on which you can film a lip sync video to share within the app.  The app has created a number of musical.ly lip synching stars.

- Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat users were 3-4 times more likely to come across cyber-bullying, (compared with twitter and you-tube users)

- Facebook and Instagram were the worst in terms of their impact on well-being and mental health.

Lahna had limited time to cover a vast subject.  So by necessity there must have been much she'd have liked to say but didn't have time for.  From my perspective I guess I'd add the following three points to her overview of social media apps ...

1) social media platforms are not neutral.  Of course they market themselves as a neutral platform that individuals can use to interact with others and express themselves.  But they are also businesses which promise advertisers, (and those seeking to influence elections), highly targetable options to get their message to the right people.  All of this functionality uses the data we reveal via our online interactions and which we often don't knowingly give specific and explicit permission to be used.  (Thus the well known social media quote - "If the product is free you are the product").

2) social media apps amplify our own unconscious bias.  They use algorithms to work out what we like and view and then serve up more of the same to us.  So they magnify our unconscious bias to follow and listen to those with views and tastes similar to our own.

3) the larger social media companies behave just like monopoly suppliers.  Their owners promote themselves as innovators and entrepreneurs facilitating a better and more informed world.  But as they become big capitalist businesses they tend to behave like a monopoly - creating expensive barriers to entry to markets and/or buying out any competitors before they become a threat.  So for example  - Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion.



How can philosophy and theology help in understanding social media

Dr John McDade, ( former Principal of Heythrop College, University of London ), then talked through some of the philosophical and theological issues around social media. 

In doing so he shared various quotes from other thinkers on some of the deeper issues around understanding ourselves and our self image.  I've arranged some of John's insights around some themes that I discerned when reviewing his slides and points.  ( I make this point as John didn't explicitly have "headings" to sections of his lecture).


The modern world and Christianity

Towards the beginning of his lecture John made a comment something like "people don't want to feel about themselves the way they think Christianity will make them feel".  He also showed the quote below to make the point that the current pope - unlike the previous two - isn't fighting with modernity. 

Later on in the lecture one of his slides had the following quote "God is missing and is not missed" - and after that the slide made this point -  "Many people now live in a de-sacralised world in which God is not mentioned, but in which digital versions of reality are increasingly pervasive.  Are these related?"  

What I took from these points was that christians need to recognise that the world has changed and it won't be changing back to some fondly remembered arrangement in which traditional approaches to mission worked.  So if we want to engage with the world - mission - we need to change how we do that.

Humans - wonderfully made but imperfect

On one slide John wrote "The worship of false gods in which we invest our intention is only to be expected".  On another slide, (below), he reflected on humans' imperfections.

On the theme of idols his slides had several quotes ...

- "Recognising idols for what they are does not break their enchantment" WH Auden

- "A society whose members are helpless need idols" Erich Fromm

- "Man differs from the other animals in his greater aptitude for imitation" Aristotle

John summarised some of this on a slide which said that - for Girard - imitation is closely linked to desire, desire is linked to need (neglect), need drives us toward idols and unreality.

Believe in your Selfie - What I took from these points is that although made in the image of God humans are pre-disposed to replace God with idols - which they then try to imitate to feel needed. Social media is just the latest tool that allows us to replace God with idols. 

The impact of digital culture on the sense of self and the sense of God

Using a combination of slides and commentary John described how as a child he had played cowboys and Indians - and in that make believe world he had "killed" hundreds of Indians.  He pondered whether virtual/digital reality might infantilise us with its elements of play-acting (masquerade).  Pre social media this "playing" was evident in how pop-stars, (think Madonna or Bowie), reinvented themselves several times.  The arrival of social media created a way for more people to re-invent themselves in an imagined second self.

John quoted Pascal (1623-62) and his insights on :

- our dissatisfaction with our lives "we are not satisfied with the life we have in ourselves and our own being.  We want to lead an imaginary life in the eyes of others and so to make an impression"

- how imagination allows us to escape that dissatisfaction - "imagination is the dominant faculty in people, master of error and falsehood, all the more deceptive for not being invariably so"

He also quoted D Bromwich on the physical self, second self theme - "It is not enough for us to be real to ourselves within ourselves.  We want to be completely special, yet we want to be completely normal."

Briefly John also looked at the use of avatars in digital games and realities - how quickly people identified with their avatar and how some people thought that together - the physical and the digital  - "we make one complete person".

He also relayed a story from 2007 of a married couple who - separately - using false names in an online chat room   thought they had found their soulmate who they could pour their heart out to.

Sonia 27 ("Sweetie" in the chatroom) - "I was suddenly in love.  It was amazing, we seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriages"

So they arranged a physical date with each other - only to discover that the other person was in fact their current partner.  In 2007 they were getting divorced and accusing each other of being unfaithful.

Adnan 32 ("Prince of Joy" in the chatroom) - "I still find it hard to believe that Sweetie, who wrote such wonderful things, is actually the same women I married who has not said a nice word to me for years"

All of these observations led to some questions

and some observations ....

also ...

- what we attend to is what we worship,

- how do we help people develop a truthful sense of self?

And now for some theology

Across a number of slides John summarised James A Smith's "Desiring the kingdom; Worship, Worldview and cultural formation" and his four features of our nature ....

1. Humans are intentional creatures whose way of 'intending' [directing their focus and purpose] is LOVE or DESIRE.

2. This love (often unconscious and non-cognitive) is always aimed at some particular version of the good life.  (We aim always to flourish even though we make bad choices).

3. There are always sets of habits and dispositions that prime us to be oriented, and to act, in certain ways.  (What your body does your soul registers).

4. Affective, bodily means, such as bodily practices, routines and rituals, grab hold of the heart through the imagination and form the person.  (We always shape or condition ourselves: and the way we do this folds back on the way we are).  You are never without your conditioner!  We create a culture that express our nature, and in turn that nature comes back and re-models us.

So as John sees it - 

- Smith offers a perspective on the formation of identity that shifts the focus away from an issue of 'knowledge' (what I believe at the level of ideas) to one of 'affect' or 'affection' (what or whom do I love?)

- Generally religious people place too much emphasis on what people believe conceptually. 'Hope' is a more interesting opening on the human heart.

- What do the rituals of your body tell you to be?

- The task for humans is how to find our way to non-idolatrous worship.

- "These days, most people do not name as 'gods' the gods they worship" (N. Lash, Holiness, Speech and Silence 38).

- Love requires practice, and practices confirm and express love.  Smith thinks of two kinds of practices or habits

In more on thin practices John set out that ,,,

- Thin practices might have unintended consequences such as their effect on the way we think and feel.  We can be shaped by trivial matters.

- No practice is neutral - there is always some goal (human flourishing in some fashion) and there is always some effect.

- Is dependence on digital reality a 'thin' habit?  Or ....

On more detail on Thick habits John set out that ...

- Smith analyses and evaluates a range of activities as 'liturgies', 'rituals of worship'

- Liturgies are 'ritual practices that function as pedagogies of ultimate desire (87)
(Note: ped . a .go . gy  - n. 1) the art or profession of teaching, 2) preparatory training or instruction)

- There can be 'secular' activities that are in fact 'rituals of worship'

Thoughts as to what this all means for youth workers

In the final session @martinsaunders shared some thoughts on practical ideas from the various points and observation in the lecture.  He had four points:

Young people need space to find the real them ... without the filters that social media apps provide.  A chance to look at their "1st attempt selfie".  Of course for youth workers this equally challenges them to ask whether they have found the real me.

Teenagers find adventure and purpose in online communities ... and we need to help them accept the adventure of a radical Christian life.

The non-stop digital life is exhausting ... provide refuge experiences of meditation, fasting and silence to allow people to unhook and reflect.

The world of young people has changed ... we need to understand those changes to gain an insight into how young people experience life.


Related links
- a recent study on teens and social media

2min 13sec @theRSAorg animated clip - Jonathan #Haidt on Why We’re Convinced We’re Right (and everyone else is wrong!)

Are you trapped in an online echo chamber? Society is becoming ever more divided as we seek out information that reinforces our views – but how do we avoid ending up dogmatic and entrenched? Renowned social psychologist Jonathan Haidt shares a shocking personal example of confirmation bias on social media, and shows just how vital it is for us to open up and absorb ideas from across the political spectrum.

#Data - The world's most valuable resource AND @KingsCollegeLon 's The #Digital Everyday - exploration or alienation

Last Saturday I attended a one day King's College London conference at their Strand Campus entitled "The Digital Everyday - Exploration or Alienation".  

In a serendipitous week the Economist magazine's leader and briefing was on digital data with a cover headline of "The world's most valuable resource".

In their leader the Economist describe data as the oil of the digital era.  They point out that with Alphabet (Google's parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft's dominance those companies use their vast pools of data to protect their dominant market positions.  In part the data they have means they can ID potential competitors quickly which they then acquire via "shoot-out acquisitions", (think Facebook and What's App) before they become a threat.

The article goes on to describe how the enormous amount of data collected - on what we buy (Amazon), what we share & like (Facebook), what we search for (Google), how we drive (Tesla), where we take taxis to (Uber) - allows these tech companies to identify and develop new services (or improve existing ones) in ways users want - so serving needs and attracting new users.  And because their competitors can't see the data they don't even know about some of the opportunities.

Given such analysis the Economist suggests antitrust authorities need to loosen the big companies grip on the data and open up Government's data to encourage competition (both with user's consent). Towards the end of the article the Economist covers the the tension between data portability and privacy and how people need help in understanding that their data has value and they are due some form of compensation when others use it.               

The Kings College conference came at the digital data issue from a  different angle.  

And slightly unusually for a tech/soc media conference it didn't have a #

The main themes I heard during the various sessions I attended are set out below.  

The full programme for the day is to the left of this text and the text below.

The twitter (or other) IDs I could find for the people who talked at the sessions I attended are - 
@jwajcman1 @paologerbaudo @girlslike_us @Caliviral @ianmtucker1 @tainab @RachaelCKent @mjgw 
@ideacritik 
@jrpybus 

@TupsTweets @susannapaasonen  samuel forsythe  tanya kent pinelopi troullinou

and the institutions that organised the conference @kingsdh @DigiCultureKCL 



Is our experience of time shaped by digital technology?

In the Opening keynote Judy Wajcman talked about how we describe and perceive the effect of technology on time so for example:

- Accelerating the pace at which things happen

- Changing our very perception of time (as did the second hand on clocks when first introduced)
                  

- Reinforcing speed as being best - technological determinism or as much culturally driven?

- Reality check - earlier technologies were also “blamed” for speeding up & too much data

- Not all of us are affected in the same way (e.g. taxi drivers wait to speed others to places)

- Time as an individual resource or as a collective accomplishment

- Information overload (e.g. email inbox) – equally due to collective norms on how we expect others to deal with emails


- Concept of time as a limited resource and so of value & so to be used productively.



So the idea of the digital affecting our experience and/or perception of time is something several have looked at ....

... and written books about ....

Our approach to digital technology

Judy's opening keynote, and Zeena Feldman's response touched on this issue.  Some of the issues mentioned that struck me are headlined below.

- Need to be more discriminating about when we use digital tecnology and be more demanding of it when we do

- Are we helpless victims or willing consumers?

- Should we be questioning more closely those who provide the devices and services in terms of their their bias and motivations?

- Is the technology a help in using “our” time productively by multi-tasking or is the practice of multi-tasking inherently less productive?

- In one of the slots in the 1st session after lunch Alessandro Caliandro talked about some research which tracked students use of smartphones and how they were always dipping in and out of using them - sometimes to kill time and sometimes to avoid stressful situations. 

When asked about misuse of smartphones some cited others hogging a digital environment with too much intellectual context.  When questioned about themselves people - of course - thought they got the balance of using smartphones for serious/silly/funny/heavy/light topics just right.



What do we actually want?

- In her response to the opening keynote Zeena Feldman pointed out that we are still figuring out how to live with these pocket computers.

- Its almost as though we're adolescents again - experimenting and trying things out as we begin to figure out who we are.

- All of which begs the question of what sort of life we want and how can digital technology help us achieve that.  Is the productive use of a time the morality that underpins the choices we want to make?  

How nuanced is the information we receive that we consider to be factual (eg the filter bubble that means my google search on a word will bring up different results from your search on the same word).  Is happiness what we pursue?  Are we human beings or human doings?



How much we share digitally and why


Self tracking devices - Rachel  Kent talked about her research on self tracking devices/apps and people's use of them.  Some of the use appeared to be motivated by a form of self policing where people used the app and the community to motivate themselves towards better exercise/eating/whatever regimes.  

Indeed the very use of such apps made people feel more healthy even if they were having a "lazy" day or the device had over reported their activity levels.  Equally when the app produced results that under reported activity there was genuine angst.


Digital Mental Health - Ian Tucker talked about the use of apps to help those with mental health issues and in particular an online supportive community app called Elefriends.  

He described from his research 

- the initial disruption participants faced when 1st using the community, 

- the quite profound level of sharing that occurred, 

- the concern if regular participants dipped out or deleted their accounts,

-  and the relief some participants felt in dipping out of using the site


Filling the Void - Social Media as depressive hedonia - Marcus Gilroy-Ware riffed on his reflections on our use of sites like facebook and how far it was compulsive or some form of escape or distraction from our unhappiness.  

In doing so he also highlighted the relentlessly positive language social media companies use to describe their products features  - for example newsfeed - and suggested we should challenge that language - perhaps triviafeed instead?


Digital Data Funerals - Audrey Samson talked about how difficult it is to delete data that is in the digital world and about Digital Data Funerals as rituals representing what data we wish could be - but can't be  - deleted. 

In workshops or via other means participants gathered together onto usb memory sticks the data they wished could be deleted so it could be embalmed or ritually destroyed.



Digital Surveillance


Quieting the Niche - Sam Forsythe discussed the effects on knowledge sharing and participation of surveillance - and counter measures against such and the way in which data was used to predict the patterns of people's lives.

Fertile Space - Tanya Kant talked about the Clear Blue Ads (pregnancy/fertility) on You Tube and the algorithmic anticipation  - of gender, age, wish to conceive  - to target such ads tp particular audiences. 

Set against this was the reactions of users against such categorisations and the doubly oppressive anticipation that females of a certain age would be interested in their fertility.  

In commenting on such she observed that how although such targeting was based on various correlations of data sets  = the way such data sets were described to users used more old fashioned marketing demographics language.


Digital learning - Pinelopi Troullinou talked about the data gathered from students during their study to help them analyse their learning and performance.  She described this "seductive surveillance" as offering quantification to students whilst being unclear about the risks of such data gathering.


Datification of student life.  Claire Tupling described the type of data now typically gathered in higher education "for the student's own good" and how discussion was less evident about ownership, consent, storage and application of such data.  She also remarked on all this data displacing the individuals as the subject of the analysis.



The closing plenary session was on Algorithms


Algorithmic Orientations - Taina Bucher talked about how we describe different platforms algorithms - how we ponder whether such have changed or are new or are frozen  - and how we react when we think the algorithim is not working in the way it serves stuff up to us that is "wrong".


Distraction - Susanna Paasonen reflected on how our attention is diverted - our our boredom diverted  - by what is served up to us  - and while she talke on this subject in the background she had projected a non-repeating sequence of interesting/amusing/diverting gifs.  

In /doing so Susanna touched on a number of issues ...

- our loss of focus/shortening of attention spans 

- but our increased capacity to handle information

- distraction not necessarily being the opposite of focus/attention