{"id":57093,"date":"2026-01-23T09:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T16:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/?p=57093"},"modified":"2026-01-23T09:52:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T16:52:46","slug":"less-feed-more-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/media-education\/social-media\/less-feed-more-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Less Feed, More Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Here is the uncomfortable fact: most Americans now get their news from social and video platforms. More than TV. More than news sites and apps. Our public square has been quietly subcontracted to feeds tuned for time\u2011on\u2011platform, not truth\u2011seeking or neighborliness. We feel the cost in our bones\u2014sharper extremism, thinner civility, cultural tribes that shout past each other, rumors that outrun corrections, and a steady undertow of loneliness. Especially for the young<\/a>, the scroll isn\u2019t just a pastime; it\u2019s the water they swim in.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the research is stubborn. When people use less social media, they hurt less. In randomized trials, trimming use<\/a> to about thirty minutes a day <\/span>lowers loneliness and depression<\/span><\/a>; a <\/span>one\u2011week break<\/span><\/a> nudges anxiety down and well\u2011being up. The gains are modest, yes\u2014but they\u2019re real. Which means the real question isn\u2019t <\/span>whether<\/span><\/i> less is better. It\u2019s how to make \u201cless\u201d the easy choice for millions of people at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

When people use less social media, they hurt less.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>When Utah Governor Spencer Cox recently encouraged listeners to <\/span>\u201ctouch grass,\u201d<\/span><\/a> it was in recognition of the fact that our online social media chambers are not helping our society, and they are not helping us individually. But there are powerful drivers pulling people back into the social media ecosystems, and well-meaning encouragement won\u2019t help address the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the system is shaping us, then we have to reshape the incentives, its defaults, its hours, its business model. What follows are a few practical legal and social ideas that may help address the raft of negative consequences of social media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Refit Section 230: A safe harbor you keep only if you sail safely<\/span><\/h3>\n

Section 230<\/span><\/a> of the federal Communications Decency Act was built to keep platforms from being sued as the publisher for what users post, and to let the platforms moderate in good faith. Over time the shield has stretched to cover not just hosting speech, but how platforms <\/span>distribute<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>rank<\/span><\/i> it. That wasn\u2019t carved into the Constitution; Congress wrote 230, and much of the expansion has come at the hands of well-meaning court rulings. But those court interpretations don\u2019t have the broader picture that a legislature can. Congress can and should update Section 230.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fix isn\u2019t necessarily to blow up 230. That could invite chaos. But we could make the Section 230 shield conditional on predictable, speech-neutral design choices:<\/span><\/p>\n