How does the mass media (including social media) control people?

The most obvious way, and which gains nearly all of the attention, is in terms of propaganda. So the mass/ social media is full of propaganda in favour of the sexual revolution, against Christianity; in favour of Leftism and against traditional values (e.g marriage, family, biologically functional sexuality) and so forth.

But this is to miss the main point about content - which is the absence of content and the nature of assumptions.

The mass media simply eliminates all serious concerns. These are (in statistical terms) never included - indeed, when serious concerns are name-checked, the mass media is 'about' seriousness, rather than being itself serious - which is a further suppression of seriousness.

A person or a movement, of truly deep spiritual and/or religious significance, is presented in terms of an encapsulated story 'about' something serious and important - how people are reacting-to this phenomenon. The seriousness is simply encapsulated and discussed - the seriousness never itself appears.Supposing that the topic is life beyond death - the subject may be mentioned, but treated as a thing some people believe,:personalities, controversies, ridicule... whatever. What will not happen is an engagement with the signiifcance of the truth of life beyond death.

But the main problem is the form not the content. The main problem with modern media addiction is that it shapes the way people think.

For a start, it takes-up attention for a large and increasing proportion of the day. It demands continuous availability - so that we must always be rapidly/ instantly contactable via media, and must always answer the call of media (it is socially unacceptable not to answer a call, to ignore unwanted messages etc).

All this is enforced by social peer pressure (especially among girls and women) - failure to participate leads to shunning, negaive comments, exclusion etc: human pressure is used to compel people into the un-human environment.

Then the attention is grabbed, manipulated, switched - again and again, thousands of times a day - This trains the mind positively to expect and want such attention switching; and negatively to become unable to hold attention - and rapidly to become bored by situations that lack this stream of attention-grabbing and rapidly changing stimuli.

Furthermore - this grabbing and switiching of attention leads to an assumption of the 'randomness'. the unrelatedness of events and phenomena... the mind-set of 'coincidence theory' (i,e, the opposite of conspiracy theory). A mind-set is created by the mass'social media which believes and expects a world of 'and then, and then, and then'. A world without organisation, a world without control, a world without purpose, a world without blame - a world where 'stuff just happens'...

And beyond this is that phenomena are presented as 'dots' but the 'dots' are not connected honestly or truthfully to see what they may imply. The dots are not joined to reveal a pattern - indeed very obvious patterns are denied and ridiculed and demonised: in the mass/ social media the underlying assumption is that dots are nothing but dots. 

There is mass addiction to the mass media - and the addict is controlled by that to which he is addicted. But people are proud of their addiction, not ashamed. There is a cult of Apple products - for example - among the elites; there is a world of fashion. So the mass of mass media addicts is controlled, and willingly controlled - and to be able and willing to surrender control to the mass/ social media is something which people are proud of.

People want to spend more and more time connected to the mass/ social media via more and better and more powerful devices, which they have with them for more of the time - they want to be plugged into this system 24/7. They don't see that as a problem, but as a legitimate life-goal (the problem is the people who try to limit or stop the media environment).

Clearly, objectively this is an extreme form of addictive dependence. The population is controlled-by their compulsion to use the mass media, and the form and content of the mass media is already and increasingly the form and content of the human mind for ever more of human experience.

People are being controlled by the mass/social media - and by multiple methods and routes - too many simultaneously to resist if someone is media-connected for most of their life. The human has been substantially displaced by the un-human. Obviously (I would have thought!) this situation is evil already, and with vast potential for more - at least it is evil for anyone who sees life as more than a space to be filled between birth and death. The big question is: is this evil situation the product of a massive set of coincidences?

Or is something strategic behind it, pushing it, using it - precisely because of the vast potential for evil? If so, given the un-human agenda, is that 'something' human?

Note: See also my online mini-book Addicted to Distraction: http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk