A New Year is fast approaching. For many it’s a time of joy and optimism, but for others it can be a daunting, sad, and worrying prospect. Christmas and the New Year period for the Badger’s family is about getting together whatever the circumstances. When we do, there’s always a discussion about the future of the tech world and so the Badger’s been musing on the subject in preparation. One of his conclusions has been that foreseeing a future event isn’t as outrageous as it might seem if you look at history and compare it with present-day dynamics.
The Badger’s concluded, for example, that ‘social media will follow the same trajectory as other industries that have touched health, cognition and social order’. That’s not an outrageous conclusion when there are striking structural parallels between social media and, for example, the tobacco industry. The latter thrived for decades in a regulatory vacuum with products that were known to damage users’ health. Similarly, social media operates in an under-regulated space with products that keep users engaged to maximise profits regardless of the toll on public health. Whereas tobacco’s harm is biochemical and physiological, social media’s is cognitive, social, behavioural, and physical in a way that’s harder to see or measure. It hides it’s harm behind its convenience, utility, and benefits. Worrying about harmful content, its encouragement of habitual screentime leading to lower physical activity, lowering attention spans, and eroding emotional adaptability, is not misplaced because these are all bad for long term physical and mental health.
The tobacco industry was built on the underlying motives of maximum user engagement, maximum revenue, product optimisation for addictive behaviour, and resistance to regulation. Social media seems the same. With tobacco, law makers eventually ‘woke up’ because – as history shows with industries that touch human health, cognition, and social order – once harms and their cost become undeniable in the public domain, society always pushes back! At some stage this seems likely to happen with social media resulting in its radical transformation. Gradual reform rarely works when business models are not aligned with societal well-being, companies are financially and politically powerful, and consumers have become accustomed to products and services. Any transformation of social media, given the slow speed of regulation, seems a long way off unless something radical happens.
What could that something be? Well, history shows that radical change tends to come from economic collapse rather than moral awakenings or gradual reform. If the social media giants were to start making huge financial losses that collapse their share price, then radical change would happen because such shocks always force restructuring, regulation, and cultural re-evaluation. Is this plausible? Well, never say never! The Badger will be adopting ‘never say never’ as his reference point for everything during 2026. In the current world and tech climate, it seems silly to do otherwise…
