When asked about what the impact of the internet would be one day, rock legend David Bowie responded: “I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society — both good and bad — is unimaginable.
“I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying,” he said.
The BBC interviewer who asked the question looked puzzled, tilting his head and tightening his brow in confusion.
“It’s just a tool though, isn’t it?” the interviewer asked.
“No, it’s not,” Bowie replied with a smile. “It’s an alien life form.”

That interview took place in 1999. It’s clear 25 years later that Bowie was right, and ahead of his time in the way that he thought about the internet. The internet was a stationary place, a tool, as the interviewer called it. And now, well, maybe “alien life-form” is in fact an accurate way to describe the system, or the social internet specifically.
On Jan. 24, New York became the first major city to designate social media as an environmental toxin and “public health hazard,” according to The Hill. Mayor Eric Adams said during his State of the City address that social media tech companies are “fueling a mental health crisis,” specifically in teens and younger users. He also announced that the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Ashwin Vasan issued an advisory to classify “unfettered access to and use of social media” as a public health hazard.
As is usually the case with hegemony, or dominant cultural ideas, our acceptance of the internet as a stable part of life keeps us from questioning it much of the time. If we do question the safety or accuracy of online content, there is not a way to change the system itself; our reliance on the internet in daily life lets us take it for granted. Put simply, it is what it is. The way it makes us feel won’t stop its operation.
In reality, though, we know that the internet has changed the way each and every one of us operates. I for one cannot imagine a childhood without the internet. I’m sure many millennials, Gen Z and now Gen Alpha would agree to an extent; before our brains were fully developed, or even before we reached our teen years, we could engage with the entire world.
We’re also at an interesting point in the internet’s history in that we are aware of its proven detrimental effects as it is causing those effects. We are the self-aware guinea pigs of the internet era. We know that social media can lead to increased rates of depression and anxiety and that it can disrupt sleep, especially in younger users, according to Mayo Clinic.
The truth is that social media does not exist to make us happy or to socialize us. It may do those things, even rarely enough, but it truly exists to make money. Our eyes, our attention, is something that advertisers are willing to pay money to the largest corporations in the history of the world for access to. Five of the largest companies in the world are tech companies. The “Big Five” media companies, as they are called — Apple, Microsoft, Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon and Meta — have a combined market value of over $10 trillion, according to Fortune.
In other words, these companies have an immense amount of power and are motivated to keep our attention at all costs. The more we interact with their sites, the more money they make. That’s also to say that, again, our enjoyment of the “product” is irrelevant. In reality, consumers are the product, our consciousness sold to advertisers by social media sites. The capitalist system of entertainment is catered to advertisers, not the user.
So, when tech companies and social media sites meet backlash for the way they treat their users and the harmful means by which they keep their attention … nothing happens. Our mental health as users of the social internet is entirely in our hands, influenced by this oligopoly. We don’t have to be happy for these companies to make money. We just have to be present.
And so the global mass of users, from casual posters to government leaders, have to be the ones to adapt the way we live for the better. We know that these systems are damaging our health and yet we cannot stop using them. That’s by design. Nowhere in that design is an exit plan, a place to opt out aside from deleting the app entirely.
Since there’s no reversing the effects that the internet has had on its users already, there is an emphasis in discourse — as seen in the New York City classification — to protect future users. The advisory recommends that parents and caregivers do not grant social media access to kids until at least age 14. It also encourages families to create a “family media plan” to establish healthier habits.
The New York City advisory at this moment mirrors the advice you would find from other reliable sources about the dangers of social media. Just like the advisory, Mayo Clinic’s advice for parents and caregivers suggests checking privacy settings, setting rules and limits on screen time and talking regularly with your child about what is and is not okay online.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the advisory is a step in the right direction. We cannot address the issues of social media if we do not acknowledge the problem in the first place. But I also think we are missing the root of the problem if we think that we as users are flawed in some way. We are perfect users for social media companies, even if it costs our sanity.
Making social media safer, more enjoyable or healthier is against the interests of the companies who created the systems themselves. New York cannot be the only city to declare social media a public health hazard. It is ubiquitous, but that doesn’t mean we can’t think deeply about it. It’s harmful, but that doesn’t mean we can’t aim to change how we as users regulate and react to it.
Just as it was impossible to conceptualize the current internet in the ’90s, it is impossible to imagine what the internet will become over the next several decades. Acknowledging that it is a detriment to our health is one positive step. Another would be recognizing who holds power when it comes to the internet. Because it isn’t us.